Laid-Off Workers Are Flooded With Fake Job Offers

Employment scams using fake job opportunities to swindle applicants are on the rise and have found a new, prime target in laid-off tech workers. From a report: These schemes -- which often involve fictitious job listings, interviews with fake recruiters and sham onboarding processes to steal job seekers' money or identities -- proliferated during the pandemic alongside virtual hiring and remote work, according to Federal Trade Commission data. Scammers now appear to be zeroing in on workers who have recently lost jobs, particularly in the tech industry, workforce experts and recent job-scam victims say. The number of reported job scams nearly tripled to 104,000 between 2019 and 2021 and remained elevated in 2022, according to the FTC. U.S. workers lost more than $200 million from employment-related scams in 2021, up from $133 million in 2019, agency data show.

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