{"id":7944,"date":"2026-06-18T15:10:57","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T15:10:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/?p=7944"},"modified":"2026-06-18T15:10:57","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T15:10:57","slug":"arizona-senator-warns-ghost-jobs-are-distorting-labor-data-urges-probe-from-trump-administration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/?p=7944","title":{"rendered":"Arizona senator warns \u2018ghost jobs\u2019 are distorting labor data, urges probe from Trump administration"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/GettyImages-2263743863.jpg?w=2048\" \/><\/p>\n<div id=\"\">\n<p>Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) pressed the Trump administration on Thursday to crack down on companies that post online listings for jobs that don\u2019t exist. In letters to the Department of Labor and Federal Trade Commission, Gallego asked the agencies to investigate how widespread \u201cghost jobs\u201d are, explain how they show up in federal labor data, and spell out what enforcement tools they can use to curb deceptive job ads. He also questioned whether policymakers can still rely on official data to evaluate the labor market if the government considers ghost jobs as real vacancies.<\/p>\n<div class=\"paywall\">\n<p>\u201cJob postings that employers have no intent to fill, or ghost jobs, are becoming increasingly common and are wasting young Americans\u2019 valuable time and energy,\u201d Gallego told <em>Fortune<\/em>. \u201cWe need more information about the extent of this problem and what, if anything, is being done to address it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The senator\u2019s letters come amid broader anxieties over AI\u2019s impact on workers, especially those earlier in their careers. Unemployment among young college graduates has edged up even as overall employment remains solid, according to recent data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. While many believe that AI is eliminating jobs lower on the career ladder, economists increasingly point to remote and hybrid work, not automation alone, as a key reason entry-level hiring has lagged in some white-collar fields.<\/p>\n<p>Still, Gallego shared those same worries over AI\u2019s impact on the workforce.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe use of artificial intelligence (AI) by online hiring platforms has also led to the increase in ghost jobs as employers can easily advertise an opening, allowing companies to recruit less actively and leave job postings open for long periods of time,\u201d Gallego asserted in his letters.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Phantom roles<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Research increasingly suggests that a rising share of online job ads never result in actual hires. In 2024, 40% of employers said they had advertised at least one role they did not intend to fill over the course of a year, a survey by career site Resume Builder found.<\/p>\n<p>And in April, employers reported posting 7.6 million openings but brought on only 5.1 million workers, meaning roughly one in three advertised positions did not result in a hire, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, employers are more broadly worried about the economy. Nearly half of CEOs surveyed in May in a quarterly poll of top executives now say economic conditions are worse than six months ago, and many point to the war in Iran, higher energy costs, and the potential for AI to reshape the labor force as key sources of uncertainty.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"flex flex-col layout-gap-md\">\n<div class=\"not-prose empty:contents [:has(*[data-empty=true])]:hidden clear-both\">\n<div class=\"typography-level-4 mt-4 font-graphik-compact [&amp;_*_a]:hover:underline\" data-cy=\"subscriptionPlea\"><span class=\"description-parser contents\" data-cy=\"description\"><strong>Subscribe to\u00a0Fortune Gulf Brief<\/strong>. Every Tuesday, this new newsletter delivers clear-eyed, authoritative intelligence on the deals, decisions, policies, and power shifts shaping one of the world\u2019s most consequential regions, written for the people who need to act on it. Sign up here.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>#Arizona #senator #warns #ghost #jobs #distorting #labor #data #urges #probe #Trump #administration<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) pressed the Trump administration on Thursday to crack down on companies that post online listings for jobs that don\u2019t exist. In letters to the Department of&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7945,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1161,10159,343,10160,1910,428,6829,430,329,1014,3779,260,670,969,583],"class_list":["post-7944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance-news","tag-administration","tag-arizona","tag-data","tag-distorting","tag-employment","tag-gen-z","tag-ghost","tag-jobs","tag-labor","tag-probe","tag-senator","tag-trump","tag-u-s-economy","tag-urges","tag-warns"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7944","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7944"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7944\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7945"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}