More employers report being haunted by ‘ghosting’ employees

It’s as if the trials of doing business during a pandemic weren’t enough. Some employer challenges, such as the skills gap and labor shortage, were a curse before the COVID era, but they’ve worsened during the health crisis. One particularly baffling trend the pandemic has put into sharper focus is “ghosting,” the practice of applicants vanishing in the middle of the hiring process or just not showing up after being hired.

What’s going on?

Job search platform Indeed recently reported on a survey it conducted of 500 jobseekers and 500 employers across the United States in a variety of industries. The researchers found ghosting was still a new phenomenon in 2019 but was getting more common by the time the research was announced in February 2021, when 28% of candidates reported they had ghosted an employer. That was up from 18% during 2019.

Employers aren’t the only ones noticing the disappearing act. The Indeed survey found 77% of jobseekers reported employers had ghosted them since the pandemic took hold during March 2020. The survey also showed 10% of the jobseekers reported an employer ghosted them after a verbal job offer.

Just 27% of employers reported they had not ghosted a jobseeker in the past year. The announcement of the research notes that ghosting by employers “creates a terrible candidate experience and can threaten a company’s employer brand.”

Effect of COVID

Indeed found that only 4% of jobseekers said COVID-19 was a reason for ghosting over the previous 12 months, but 48% acknowledged employers are probably being ghosted more often during the pandemic.