Original research · 2026 edition · CC BY 4.0
The €20.5B Ghost Economy
Ghost jobs and candidate ghosting drained an estimated €20.5 billion from the European economy in 2025. We built the number from public data, line by line, and published every input.
By TenPerZent · Published 10 May 2026
Five findings a journalist can quote
- 01
Ghost jobs and candidate ghosting cost the EU €20.5 billion in 2025 — equivalent to the annual GDP of Malta.
- 02
Roughly one in five public job postings in Europe is a ghost — open, listed, advertised, but with no real intention or budget to hire.
- 03
Italy and Spain have the highest ghost-posting rates in our sample (24% and 22%); the Netherlands has the lowest (17%).
- 04
78% of entry-level applicants never receive any response — a level of silent rejection that no other consumer market would tolerate.
- 05
Technology and professional services are the worst offenders: 31% and 27% of their postings are ghosts, driven by 'always-on' evergreen pipelines.
What is a ghost job?
A ghost job is a job posting that is publicly visible but not actively being filled. It typically falls into one of three buckets:
- Paused. The role was real, then frozen, but the posting was never taken down.
- Phantom. The headcount was never approved by finance — the posting exists to "see what's out there".
- Evergreen. The company collects CVs continuously without a specific opening, in case something opens later.
Operationally we count any posting that has been live for more than 60 days without a single recruiter action as a ghost.[4][5][11]
The €20.5B breakdown
Three cost buckets, summed across the seven largest EU labour markets, then grossed up to EU27.
Recruiter wasted hours
€0.8B
4% of total
Candidate wasted hours
€14.2B
69% of total
Opportunity cost — delayed real hires
€5.5B
27% of total
By country
The seven countries below cover ~78% of EU employment.[1]
| Country | Ghost share | Recruiter cost | Candidate cost | Opportunity cost | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Germany | 21% | €209M | €3140M | €1285M | €4634M |
| France | 19% | €138M | €2746M | €1119M | €4003M |
| Italy | 24% | €85M | €2004M | €680M | €2768M |
| Spain | 22% | €61M | €1540M | €481M | €2082M |
| Netherlands | 17% | €44M | €618M | €313M | €975M |
| Poland | 20% | €20M | €548M | €200M | €768M |
| Sweden | 18% | €30M | €499M | €236M | €766M |
By industry
Tech and professional services lead — driven by 'always-on' pipelines.[6][11]
Technology
€4.5BEvergreen 'we're always hiring' postings inflate this number — especially for senior engineers and data roles.
Retail & hospitality
€3.7BHigh-volume, low-cost-per-hire — but ghost rates spike around store-opening seasons.
Financial services
€2.9BPipeline-building reqs that compliance never approved are common in regulated finance.
Healthcare
€2.7BLowest ghost share — most postings are real and chronically understaffed.
The candidate side
The further down the seniority ladder you sit, the louder the silence.[8][10]
| Seniority | % never hear back | Avg days to first reply | Avg days to silent reject |
|---|---|---|---|
| Entry-level | 78% | 19 | 41 |
| Mid-level | 64% | 12 | 33 |
| Senior | 47% | 8 | 27 |
| Director+ | 31% | 6 | 22 |
What changes if AI screens first?
Roughly 38% of the recruiter-side cost (€0.3B) is the time spent reading applications for postings that were never going to be filled. AI screening removes that work in seconds — and just as importantly, lets every candidate get a real, scored response instead of silence.
See how TenPerZent does itSources
- [1] Eurostat — Labour Force Survey — employment, unemployment, vacancy rates by country (accessed 2026-04-22)
- [2] Eurostat — Hourly labour costs — annual data (accessed 2026-04-22)
- [3] Eurostat — Job vacancy statistics — quarterly data (accessed 2026-04-22)
- [4] Indeed Hiring Lab — Indeed Hiring Lab — time-to-fill and posting longevity (accessed 2026-04-18)
- [5] LinkedIn Economic Graph — LinkedIn Economic Graph — share of postings open >60 days (accessed 2026-04-18)
- [6] Greenhouse — Greenhouse Source-of-Hire Report 2025 — applications per requisition (accessed 2026-04-15)
- [7] Workable — Workable Hiring Pulse 2025 — recruiter screening time per application (accessed 2026-04-15)
- [8] Glassdoor Economic Research — Glassdoor Workplace Trends — candidate response rates (accessed 2026-04-12)
- [9] OECD — OECD Employment Outlook 2025 (accessed 2026-04-10)
- [10] Greenhouse — Greenhouse Candidate Experience Report 2025 — share of applicants who never receive a response (accessed 2026-04-09)
- [11] Revelio Labs — Revelio Labs — share of public postings classified as 'evergreen' or 'phantom' (accessed 2026-04-08)
- [12] European Central Bank — ECB Statistical Data Warehouse — average GDP per hour worked, EU27 (accessed 2026-04-07)
Full method, formulas and limitations: read the methodology →
Cite this report
Short: TenPerZent (2026). The €20.5B Ghost Economy. https://tenperzent.com/research/ghost-economy-2026
APA: TenPerZent. (2026). The €20.5 billion Ghost Economy: How fake and stalled jobs drain Europe. Retrieved from https://tenperzent.com/research/ghost-economy-2026
Released under CC BY 4.0 — free for journalists, analysts, students, anyone using it in earnest. Just link back.
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