Ghostworking Is the New 9-to-5 Survival Strategy

Work these days often looks like effort, but it’s mostly improv. Open tabs, scheduled calls, and the occasional keyboard click keep the illusion going. Resume Now calls it ghostworking, and their latest report suggests it’s become the norm.

The report surveyed over 1,100 U.S. workers and found that 58 percent regularly pretend to be working, while another 34 percent fake it at least occasionally. That leaves only 12 percent who said they never do it—which might be the biggest red flag of all.

Ghostworking is what happens when showing up matters more than getting anything meaningful done. Some workers walk the halls with notebooks like they’re mid-breakthrough. Others mash their keyboards with random text or hold silent phone calls for the benefit of anyone watching. A dedicated few have scheduled fake meetings on their calendars just to block out their time.

Forget Quiet Quitting. Everyone’s Ghostworking Now.

When going through the motions starts to drag, a huge chunk of employees use work hours to line up their exit plans. The study found that 24 percent tweak their résumés on the clock, 23 percent apply for new jobs using company devices, and 20 percent take recruiter calls from the office. Nearly one in five have actually left the building during the day to attend interviews elsewhere.

While it’s easy to blame this on apathy or laziness, the root cause seems deeper. The survey pointed to burnout, poor communication, and the weird in-between feeling of hybrid and remote setups as major drivers. Many employees don’t know what’s expected of them, and some are so micromanaged they’d rather simulate effort than deal with another Slack message about “circling back.”

Fake productivity has become a coping mechanism. Not because people hate work—but because a lot of them feel disconnected from it. And cracking down harder won’t fix that. While 69 percent of employees said monitoring their screen time might help them stay on task, experts suggest giving people a little more trust instead of obsessing over whether their Slack status says “active.”

For now, ghostworking is a way to cope. Burned-out employees keep the cursor blinking, calendars full, and bosses satisfied—while mentally checking out. The workday becomes a performance, not because they’re lazy, but because going through the motions feels safer than pushing back.