One out of every four job postings on a company’s own careers site has been open for more than 90 days. That is the headline from a new report, and it is a strange number for a job market that is supposed to be tight. unlisted.careers’s report, titled Ghost Jobs, looks at 607,050 postings across 15 applicant tracking systems, reading each one directly from the employer’s own site. The median posting is 36 days old.
The Numbers Behind the Headline
The report found that 28.3% of open postings have been up for more than 90 days. That figure comes from a sweep that started August 24 and ran until September 23, 2026, covering 29 days. The data is based on dates posted by the employer, which the report says are available on 95% of postings.
Some of those postings have been around far longer. About 16% of the dated postings have been open more than 180 days. The median age of an open posting is 36 days, meaning half of the catalog was published more recently than that.
How Long Postings Last
The distribution shows that most postings move fast. Only 45.1% are under 30 days old. Another 17.1% sit between 30 and 60 days, and 9.5% are 60 to 90 days old. The two bands the report calls “stale” — 90 to 180 days and over 180 days — cover 12% and 16.3% of dated postings, respectively.
Closure rates are faster than you might expect. Just 14.6% of closed postings disappeared within a week, but 30.8% came down within two weeks. The median time from posting to removal is 24 days, and 90% closed within 113 days. Because the report has only been watching for 29 days, those figures are a lower bound.
Where the Longest Postings Live
Some categories keep jobs open longer than others. Hospitality leads the pack, with 43.9% of postings open more than 90 days and a median of 65 days. Healthcare moves the fastest, with 19.7% of postings open that long and a median that is not specified.
The applicant tracking systems themselves matter too. Lever boards carry the largest share of stale postings, at 48.2%, while Workday boards have the smallest share, at 17.2%. Some systems, like Pinpoint, Personio, and Y Combinator, publish no posting date, so their age cannot be measured.
Countries and Employers
The report ranks the fifteen countries with the most open postings by how long their postings stay up and how often a salary is stated. The full list of thirty countries is available as a CSV.
Among individual employers, the report looks at those with the most postings open on their own careers site. The table reports the rate of postings open more than 90 days and links every name to its postings so readers can check them at the source. Employers appear above 50 open postings only.
Fast Closers
The report also tracks which employers take postings down quickly. The list below shows the fastest to remove a posting, with at least 30 closures each over the last 90 days.
- Worldpay2 — 2 days, 38 closed
- Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital2 — 2 days, 35 closed
- OCE1003OCNS3 — 3 days, 41 closed
- The Works4 — 4 days, 103 closed
- Diamond5 — 5 days, 100 closed
- Grady Memorial Hospital5 — 5 days, 42 closed
- Pinnacle Treatment5 — 5 days, 33 closed
- Clera6 — 6 days, 681 closed
- BBVA6 — 6 days, 602 closed
- Weekday6 — 6 days, 318 closed
- Wellstar Health System6 — 6 days, 177 closed
- MSKCC Primary6 — 6 days, 38 closed
- Pluxee6 — 6 days, 35 closed
- EWOR GmbH7 — 7 days, 493 closed
- UofL Health7 — 7 days, 155 closed
- Parkland7 — 7 days, 88 closed
- Kaweah Health7 — 7 days, 68 closed
- ProMedica Central Physicians7 — 7 days, 52 closed
- Air Products7 — 7 days, 45 closed
- Maslow Group7 — 7 days, 44 closed
Salary Listings
Some employers list a salary for nearly every posting. The report ranks those with 50 or more open postings where the largest share carry a stated salary. The list is sorted by share, then by size.
- Kimmel & Associates — 100.0%, 405 open
- Relativity Space — 100.0%, 335 open
- NYU Langone Health — 100.0%, 316 open
- Children’s Hospital — 100.0%, 311 open
- 4th Day Trucking — 100.0%, 303 open
- DIG INN Chefs-In-Training — 100.0%, 302 open
- Nfamilyclub — 100.0%, 271 open
- MINK Life & Legacy Agency — 100.0%, 242 open
- Chevron Stations — 100.0%, 238 open
- 10-4 Truck Recruiting — 100.0%, 226 open
- American Transport Team — 100.0%, 220 open
- Hillstone Restaurant Group — 100.0%, 211 open
- Chess Wizards — 100.0%, 208 open
- Comprehensive Rehab Consultants — 100.0%, 200 open
- Flexport — 100.0%, 194 open
- Ensemble Performing Arts — 100.0%, 193 open
- Nexploreusa — 100.0%, 183 open
- Alchemy Financial Group — 100.0%, 177 open
- XP Inc. — 100.0%, 171 open
- Meron Financial Agency — 100.0%, 170 open
Reposting and Closure
Reposting happens more than you might think. About 4.2% of closed postings came back within 30 days as a new posting for the same role at the same employer. A further 4,576 open postings were closed and reopened in place.
The report defines a “stale” posting as one the employer’s own careers site has shown open for more than 90 days, counted from the date the employer published. It never calls a single posting a ghost job. It reports rates.
What the Data Shows
The report’s method is worth noting. 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 was open on its employer’s site when the report was computed.
The report also acknowledges what it cannot say. It cannot tell whether an employer that keeps a posting up is still interviewing, or how long the same postings stay on LinkedIn or Indeed after they leave the source. It only sees the source.
Reading Between the Lines
The data raises questions the report does not answer. Why do some postings stay open so long? Is it because hiring takes time, or because the openings are evergreen, or because employers are simply slow to close them?
The report itself offers a cautious reading: a long open posting is not proof of anything on its own. Some roles are evergreen, some employers hire in volume all year. The report links every employer’s name to its postings so readers can check them at the source.
The sheer scale of the report — 607,050 postings across 15 systems — gives it weight beyond its cheerful, slightly baffled tone. It is more fun to read than a standard complaint about slow hiring.
The report is free to quote and reproduce with a link to its page. The suggested citation is Unlisted, Ghost Jobs Report, September 2026.
Source material: “28% of job postings on company career sites have been open over 90 days,” unlisted.careers.
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