The survey was carried out between April and May 2023 and revealed that 4,516 jobseekers (aged 18 to 64), whereby 1, 507 US respondents, 1, 506 UK respondents and 1, 503 Canada respondents admitted to ghosting employers and 4, 517 employers from UK, Canada, and the US admitted to having been ghosted.

Eight in ten (79 per cent) of Generation Z and Millennial job-seekers have engaged in ghosting in the past year, and according to Yahoo!Finance who cites Fortune.com, “A staggering 87% managed to charm their way through interviews, secure the job, and sign the contract, only to leave their new boss stranded on the very first day.”

The survey therefore suggested that ghosting has become one of the greatest challenges employers are facing today and this has become a notable problem within the hiring experience across the board.

Ghosting sentiments

According to the survey, 60% of jobseekers say that, since employers ghost jobseekers, it’s fair play to ghost employers, 78% of jobseekers overall have ghosted 1-4 employers in the past year and 48% say they’ll ghost employers in the future.

All three countries ghosting cultures were accounted for in the report but in the UK, 33% of those who ghost say they resorted to the behaviour because the role simply did not excite them.

UK-based jobseekers surveyed are also the most likely internationally (23%) to claim they haven’t ghosted a business in the past 12 months and also to say it’s never acceptable to ghost (19%).

Despite this, three in four (75%) have ghosted between one and four times during the past year – although their anxiety afterward is also the highest (30%) across the nations surveyed.

Employers in the UK seem to view ghosting as a relatively new and unwelcome phenomenon, with only one in 10 (10%) stating it has always happened and half (50%) saying it’s never acceptable for jobseekers to ghost an employer.

Businesses aren’t off the hook

The survey also reveals that 89% of UK-based employers surveyed say they feel ghosting is a problem, and almost half (48%) say it has increased recruiter burnout, with this in mind, 59% have some strategies in place to keep applicants engaged during the hiring process. These include consistent communication (31%) and providing clear information about the role (30%).

75% of employers say ghosting costs up to half of their recruitment budget, 71% think ghosting is more common now than before 2022, 54% experienced first-time ghosting in the past year and 89% say it causes a problem for their business. A majority of employers and jobseekers agree that ghosting is now part of the hiring landscape, however, they don’t always agree on the reasons why, or what to do to prevent future ghosting.

When those surveyed were asked the top reason behind why jobseekers ghost, 58% of employers said this was due to rival job offers, whereas, 33% of jobseekers decided it was not the right job for them.

When the leading strategy to prevent jobseeker ghosting was asked, 48% of employers thought that improved candidate communication and transparency was the answer, whereas, 40% of jobseekers said higher pay.

Gen Z appears to be the biggest culprits and is branded by the news source as “feeling emboldened”. Despite this, Yahoo!Finance assures that baby boomers, Gen X, and millennials aren't off the hook because Indeed’s data found that everyone is guilty of ghosting. “Unlike Gen Z who feel emboldened by blanking bosses, older workers say they instantly regret it. Millennials, for example, are most likely to feel anxious after ghosting and worried that ghosting will negatively impact future opportunities. What’s more, while more than half of Gen Zers are repeat offenders, the researchers found that a candidate’s likelihood to ghost again decreases with age.”

Further adding that “Even businesses are joining in: One in five workers complained that a prospective employer has failed to show up for a phone interview, while 23% have been provided with a verbal offer only to be left hanging. And, perhaps surprisingly, over a third of companies agree that this sentiment is reasonable.”