Significant Number of Job Postings Remain Open for Extended Periods

How old the open postings are

Every dated open posting, by the time since the employer published it. The two right hand bands are what this report calls stale.

Under 30 days: 45.1% (260,305) 30 to 60 days: 17.1% (98,473) 60 to 90 days: 9.5% (54,850) 90 to 180 days: 12% (68,951) Over 180 days: 16.3% (94,106)

By category

Hospitality postings sit the longest: 43.9% have been open more than 90 days, median 65 days. Healthcare turns over fastest at 19.7%.

Category	Share over 90 days	Median age	Open postings	Salary stated
Hospitality	43.9%	65 days	23,639	33.0%
Education	37.4%	56 days	8,928	51.5%
Other	35.3%	48 days	61,538	31.0%
Engineering	32.3%	46 days	69,017	32.5%
Design	31.5%	47 days	4,733	32.6%
Skilled trades	29.5%	37 days	44,283	44.2%
Product	29.4%	44 days	6,680	39.0%
Operations	29.3%	37 days	40,041	34.4%
HR & people	29.2%	35 days	6,323	32.0%
Logistics	27.3%	30 days	28,881	48.6%
Customer support	26.6%	32 days	10,023	46.1%
Marketing	25.9%	37 days	12,263	34.6%
Sales	25.5%	34 days	51,099	40.7%
Data	23.6%	34 days	13,205	32.9%
Finance	23.5%	33 days	20,517	35.1%
Legal	22.0%	34 days	8,367	39.4%
Retail	20.1%	24 days	41,677	51.0%
Healthcare	19.7%	29 days	68,283	47.6%

By applicant tracking system

The system an employer posts through says a lot about how its postings age. Lever boards carry the largest stale share at 48.2%; Workday the smallest at 17.2%. Pinpoint, Personio, Y Combinator publish no posting date, so their age cannot be measured and is not guessed.

System	Share over 90 days	Median age	Open postings
Lever	48.2%	83 days	1,871
BambooHR	47.9%	79 days	64,151
Recruitee	45.3%	82 days	596
Teamtailor	42.3%	64 days	45,698
Rippling	38.6%	61 days	16,339
Workable	38.2%	51 days	5,755
Breezy	36.7%	55 days	25,124
Ashby	34.8%	54 days	13,899
Greenhouse	32.1%	47 days	52,589
SmartRecruiters	27.0%	35 days	73,024
UKG	26.7%	35 days	51,130
Workday	17.2%	26 days	226,520
Pinpoint	no posting date	no posting date	15,691
Personio	no posting date	no posting date	11,018
Y Combinator	no posting date	no posting date	3,645

By country

The fifteen countries with the most open postings, by how their postings age and how often a salary is stated. The full thirty are in the CSV.

Country	Share over 90 days	Median age	Open postings	Salary stated
United States	26.2%	34 days	334,681	50.7%
United Kingdom	26.8%	36 days	29,629	36.9%
Canada	27.6%	36 days	21,977	48.8%
Germany	31.7%	54 days	20,286	3.9%
France	32.6%	48 days	19,030	15.9%
India	25.9%	33 days	14,287	1.9%
Sweden	40.9%	51 days	11,774	0.4%
Australia	21.5%	28 days	7,872	14.7%
Spain	34.3%	50 days	6,367	9.3%
Singapore	26.3%	37 days	4,792	4.2%
Brazil	27.4%	39 days	4,153	13.8%
Mexico	29.7%	41 days	3,858	17.2%
Netherlands	39.2%	64 days	3,525	27.9%
Poland	28.8%	42 days	3,516	4.2%
Italy	25.8%	29 days	3,446	42.7%

The employers with the most open postings

The twenty employers with the most postings open on their own careers site, and how many of those have been up more than 90 days. A long open posting is not proof of anything on its own: some roles are evergreen, some employers hire in volume all year. This table reports the rate and links every name to its postings so you can check them at the source. Employers appear above 50 open postings only.

Employer	Open postings	Share over 90 days	Median age
O'Reilly Auto Parts	14,320	45.6%	77 days
CVS Health	14,195	5.1%	22 days
Lowe's	12,225	0.0%	22 days
TJX Companies	10,157	14.0%	22 days
Accenture	4,270	3.4%	13 days
Whataburger Restaurants	4,184	83.9%	239 days
JLL	3,766	0.0%	15 days
PACS Group	2,786	1.1%	22 days
AdventHealth	2,778	0.0%	9 days
Genuine Parts Company	2,762	0.0%	22 days
ABB	2,757	5.2%	21 days
Kohl's	2,670	0.0%	23 days
Curtiss-Wright	2,667	0.0%	23 days
Dick's Sporting Goods	2,665	0.0%	23 days
Hitachi	2,649	0.0%	26 days
Mercy	2,634	0.0%	28 days
American Logistics Authority	2,597	100.0%	308 days
Booz Allen Hamilton	2,218	0.0%	26 days
GE Vernova	2,076	10.9%	21 days
MUSC	2,071	20.2%	37 days

Fastest to take a posting down

Employers whose postings close soonest after publishing, by median days from posting to removal over the last 90 days. At least 30 closures each.

1. Worldpay 2 days (38 closed)
2. Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital 2 days (35 closed)
3. OCE1003OCNS 3 days (41 closed)
4. The Works 4 days (103 closed)
5. Diamond 5 days (100 closed)
6. Grady Memorial Hospital 5 days (42 closed)
7. Pinnacle Treatment 5 days (33 closed)
8. Clera 6 days (681 closed)
9. BBVA 6 days (602 closed)
10. Weekday 6 days (318 closed)
11. Wellstar Health System 6 days (177 closed)
12. MSKCC Primary 6 days (38 closed)
13. Pluxee 6 days (35 closed)
14. EWOR GmbH 7 days (493 closed)
15. UofL Health 7 days (155 closed)
16. Parkland 7 days (88 closed)
17. Kaweah Health 7 days (68 closed)
18. ProMedica Central Physicians 7 days (52 closed)
19. Air Products 7 days (45 closed)
20. Maslow Group 7 days (44 closed)

Every posting states a salary

Employers with 50 or more open postings where the largest share carry a stated salary. Sorted by share, then by size.

1. Kimmel & Associates 100.0% (405 open)
2. Relativity Space 100.0% (335 open)
3. NYU Langone Health 100.0% (316 open)
4. Children's Hospital 100.0% (311 open)
5. 4th Day Trucking 100.0% (303 open)
6. DIG INN Chefs-In-Training 100.0% (302 open)
7. Nfamilyclub 100.0% (271 open)
8. MINK Life & Legacy Agency 100.0% (242 open)
9. Chevron Stations 100.0% (238 open)
10. 10-4 Truck Recruiting 100.0% (226 open)
11. American Transport Team 100.0% (220 open)
12. Hillstone Restaurant Group 100.0% (211 open)
13. Chess Wizards 100.0% (208 open)
14. Comprehensive Rehab Consultants 100.0% (200 open)
15. Flexport 100.0% (194 open)
16. Ensemble Performing Arts 100.0% (193 open)
17. Nexploreusa 100.0% (183 open)
18. Alchemy Financial Group 100.0% (177 open)
19. XP Inc. 100.0% (171 open)
20. Meron Financial Agency 100.0% (170 open)

Closures and reposts

88,895 postings removed from their employer's site in the last 30 days

14.6% came down within a week of publishing and 30.8% within two.

24 days

median time from publishing to removal

Over postings that closed in the last 90 days. Ninety percent closed within 113 days. We have watched for 29 days, so the true medians can only be longer; this is a lower bound.

4.2%

of closed postings came back within 30 days

3,915 postings closed and the same employer published the same role again. A further 4,576 open postings were closed and reopened in place.

Definitions and method

Stale: A posting the employer's own careers site has shown open for more than 90 days, counted from the date the employer published. This report never calls a single posting a ghost job. It reports rates.

Repost: A posting that closes and comes back within 30 days as a new posting for the same role at the same employer, matched on the normalized title and description.

Where the data comes from: Unlisted reads the public APIs of the applicant tracking systems employers post through, board by board, every few hours. Nothing is scraped from job boards and nothing is estimated. Every posting counted here was open on its employer's site when the report was computed.

What it cannot say: Whether an employer that keeps a posting up is still interviewing, and how long the same postings stay on LinkedIn or Indeed after they leave the source. We only see the source. Closure times are bounded by how long we have been watching, and the report says so wherever it prints one.

Download the tables

Each table on this page as a CSV, with company rows linked to their catalog page.

• By category.csv
• By country (30 countries).csv
• By applicant tracking system.csv
• Employers with the most open postings.csv
• Fastest to take a posting down.csv
• Salary disclosure by employer.csv

Quoting this report

Free to quote and reproduce with a link to this page. Suggested citation:

Unlisted, Ghost Jobs Report, September 2026. unlisted.careers/ghost-jobs/report/2026-09

Questions about the method, or a figure you want cut differently: hello@unlisted.careers.

The job boards show you what was posted. Unlisted shows you what is still open on the employer's own site, and tells you when it last checked.

Check a job posting Live freshness report

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