Ghosting used to be a dating app move. Gen Z has brought it to the job market, and hiring managers are starting to notice.
It is one thing to stop answering a stranger on a dating app. It is another to accept a job and then vanish.
As the job market moves more slowly, recruiters say more applicants are doing exactly that. That worries hiring managers, who see it as a professionalism problem.
For hiring managers, the worry is practical: someone who will not finish the paperwork may not be reliable on the job either.
So why would someone work through interviews, get an offer, and then disappear? The Wall Street Journal's Mary Julia Koch has an explanation, and it starts with the economy.
Koch, an associate editor for The Wall Street Journal's Free Expression section, discussed the trend on "Varney & Co." on August 9, 2026.
She pointed to housing costs, inflation, and the wider economic pressure as reasons many young people feel discouraged.
"There have been huge economic pressures, and especially among a generation that was of prime home-buying age during the pandemic, they didn't hit that benchmark," Koch said.
"And I think it's left many young people feeling that the system is rigged against them, that they've been locked out of the American dream."
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Koch added that this group has been putting off the usual life milestones.
Many were at the age when people typically buy a first home, and the pandemic arrived before they got there.
There is a screen factor too. When you grow up texting and swiping, a face-to-face interview can feel unfamiliar.
"Ghosting is a thing you do over text," Koch said.
She describes today's job market as "low-hire, low-fire," meaning companies are not adding many workers and not cutting many, either.
In that kind of market, she says, you do not want to be on the wrong side of a hiring manager.
"You would at least give them an email response."
Ghosting is not an investing topic on its own.
The reason behind it is financial pressure on the generation now entering the workforce.
Housing costs, inflation, and the sense that the American dream is out of reach do not stay inside the hiring office.
They follow people into the rest of their lives.
That strain shows up in big decisions, like buying a home or making long-term plans.
When a generation delays those milestones, the housing market and the broader economy feel it.
The question for investors is not whether one candidate shows up.
It is whether the discouragement behind the trend spreads into the rest of the economy.
The bottom line: Ghosting is a small symptom with a large backstory.
The economic strain that makes a candidate disappear is the same strain that shapes housing, spending, and the broader market.
It is not going away, and it is the kind of trend that shows up in your portfolio over time.
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