Job scams surge 118% in 2023, fueled by AI

These fraudulent job postings often appear on reputable websites such as LinkedIn and other job search platforms, making it difficult for job seekers to differentiate between legitimate opportunities and scams, says the report.

The average victim of these scams loses about $2,000, according to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), in the CNBC article. In 2022 alone, consumers reported losing a staggering $367 million to job and business opportunity scams, an increase of 76% year over year.

Job scams on the rise

While job scams account for only 9% of total identity scams in 2023, they are recognized as an “emerging” threat. Eva Velasquez, president and CEO of the ITRC, explained, “Job scams have been around since there were jobs, but they’ll continue to grow because of a number of external factors that are occurring.”

One of these factors is the advancement of AI technology, which allows scammers to craft more convincing job listings and recruitment messages, said CNBC.

“AI tools help refine the ‘pitch’ to make it more believable as well as compensate for cultural and grammar differences in language usage,” the ITRC report stated.