If you’ve applied to dozens of jobs that never seem to hire anyone, you’re not imagining things.

One of the most common questions journalists, economists, and labor analysts are asking right now is deceptively simple: Why are there so many job postings, yet so few actual hires? The answer sits in an uncomfortable gray area between intent and reality. A large share of job openings are technically live but functionally unavailable to external candidates.

Recruiters sometimes call these roles “soft-closed.” Job seekers call them “ghost jobs.” The labor market data treats them as vacancies. All three descriptions point to the same phenomenon.

What “Soft-Closed” Actually Means

A soft-closed job is a role that appears open on job boards but is not actively hiring external candidates in a meaningful way. The posting exists, applications are accepted, but the likelihood of an outside hire is extremely low.

This does not require bad intent. In most cases, it’s a byproduct of how modern hiring systems, internal incentives, and compliance rules work.

Soft-closed roles typically fall into one of four categories:

• Jobs that automatically expire and are reposted without active screening
• Roles frozen mid-process due to budget, headcount, or leadership changes
• Positions effectively reserved for internal candidates
• “Pipeline” postings meant to collect resumes, not make hires

From the outside, all of them look identical to a real opening.

How Common Is This?

While exact figures vary by industry, multiple hiring datasets and recruiter surveys point in the same direction: a significant share of posted jobs are never meaningfully open to external candidates.

Based on aggregated hiring data across ATS platforms, recruiter interviews, and internal resume review pipelines, a realistic breakdown looks like this:

• 20-30% of job postings auto-expire without a hire
  These roles are posted to meet internal or regulatory requirements, then quietly lapse.
• 15-25% are frozen mid-process
  Budget pauses, hiring freezes, or shifting priorities stop the search, but the listing remains live.
• 20-40% are filled internally
  Promotions, transfers, or pre-selected referrals take the role, often after the posting goes public.

That leaves a surprisingly small fraction of postings that are actively open, funded, and seeking external candidates at the time most applicants apply.

This is not fringe behavior but a standard operating procedure in many organizations.

The Time-to-Post vs. Time-to-Close Mismatch

One of the clearest signals that something is off is the gap between how long jobs stay posted and how long hiring actually takes.

In many industries:

• Jobs are posted for 30-90 days
• Actual hiring decisions happen in 10-20 days
• Or not at all

When a role stays live long after shortlists are formed or decisions are made, it creates the illusion of opportunity without the substance. Applicants continue to apply into a funnel that has already narrowed or closed.

From a data perspective, the job exists. From a hiring perspective, it’s over.

Why Companies Keep These Jobs Live

This is where the story gets uncomfortable, but also more nuanced than most online explanations suggest.

Compliance and Policy Requirements

Some companies are required to post roles publicly even when they already have an internal candidate. The posting satisfies process, not intent.

Pipeline Building

Recruiters are incentivized to keep candidate pipelines warm, especially in uncertain markets. Posting roles allows them to collect resumes “just in case.”

Market Signaling

Open roles can signal growth to investors, competitors, and employees, even when hiring is paused or selective.

Operational Inertia

Once a job is live across multiple platforms, it often stays live by default. Turning it off requires coordination that doesn’t always happen.

None of these reasons are about tricking job seekers. But the outcome feels the same on the receiving end.

Why This Makes Unemployment Feel Worse Than the Data

Official labor data counts job postings. Job seekers experience hiring decisions.

When a large portion of openings are soft-closed, headline numbers overstate actual opportunity. The market looks healthier on paper than it feels in practice.

This disconnect explains several contradictions people notice:

• High job openings alongside long job searches
• Strong employment reports alongside widespread candidate frustration
• Companies “hiring” while rejecting nearly everyone

It’s not that people are unemployable. It’s that many applications are never truly considered.

What This Means for Job Seekers

Understanding soft-closed jobs doesn’t fix the market, but it changes how candidates should interpret rejection and silence.

Not hearing back often says nothing about your qualifications. It says something about the status of the role.

It also explains why:

• Early applicants fare better. Use job boards like DayOneJobs to be alert on jobs the moment they get posted.
• Referral-driven hiring dominates outcomes
• Applying broadly without targeting produces diminishing returns

The problem is not effort. It’s signal.

As AI tools surface more job listings and make applying easier, the gap between posted demand and real demand becomes more visible, not less. More applications are competing for fewer genuinely open seats.

That’s why journalists keep returning to this question. It’s not about job seekers being entitled or companies being dishonest. It’s about a labor market whose surface metrics no longer map cleanly to lived experience.

Until hiring systems change, soft-closed jobs will remain a defining feature of modern employment.

And understanding that reality is the first step toward making sense of a market that feels broken, even when the numbers say it isn’t.