'Ghost jobs' could soon be illegal in New York

New York may be about to do something every exhausted job seeker has fantasized about at 2 a.m.: make “ghost jobs” way riskier. Lawmakers passed a bill that would force big employers to say whether a role is actually being filled, when they expect to fill it, and to remove listings within two weeks after hiring. In plain English: if a company is just fishing for résumés or leaving old posts up forever, it may have to say so out loud.

And the comments? Absolutely done with the nonsense. One of the loudest reactions was pure relief: people called the practice cruel, saying fake listings waste precious time when applicants are already stressed and desperate. Another crowd favorite was the demand to go even further: don’t just ban ghost jobs, ban ghosting people too. One commenter basically said employers should send a simple rejection instead of leaving applicants in emotional limbo forever — a take that feels very “the group chat has spoken.”

But not everyone thinks this is a magic fix. One skeptic pointed to jobs posted only because of visa-related hiring rules, arguing companies may still technically comply while keeping the same broken system. So yes, the thread had its dose of “great idea, but will anyone actually stop the loopholes?” energy.

And then came the comedy: one commenter recalled finding listings so messy they sounded like a bad prank — a Java job in Syracuse that was really a Cold Fusion job in Atlanta — and joked that if the search had lasted longer, they’d have built a bot to publicly shame fake posts. Honestly? The crowd seemed ready to subscribe.