Click, Apply, Scam: Fake Jobs Make Their Way to Ethiopian Digital Job Portals

Lieulekal Engidaw, 25, a recent graduate in construction engineering, had fallen into the familiar routine of scrolling through job listings online, a daily ritual for many young job seekers in Ethiopia. One day, while browsing Afriwork, one of the country’s largest online job platforms, he stumbled across a posting that seemed more promising than most.

The vacancy was for a “Data Entry & Administrative Assistant” at the humanitarian heavyweight Welthungerhilfe (WHH). Marked with a verification badge, the listing carried an air of legitimacy and, notably, required no specific educational qualifications. To Lieulekal, it appeared both attainable and trustworthy.

But when he attempted to apply, the process swiftly diverted from Afriwork’s platform. He was redirected to a Telegram account, where a meticulously staged recruitment routine began to play out. 

The first message greeted him warmly, claiming he was among the Top 50 finalists for the Data Entry & Admin Assistant role at WHH. The note detailed an attractive yet seemingly reasonable offer for an NGO: a monthly salary of $258.34 to $317.25, free daily lunch, transport allowance, performance-based raises, exposure to major industry players, year-end bonuses, paid training, and clear promotion pathways. It even included a detailed work schedule and outlined the expected tasks.

To advance in the process, applicants were asked to complete a “self-reflection task” by writing a short essay. A few days later, Lieulekal received a more flattering message, claiming he had been chosen as one of 10 finalists. The so-called final stage was described as an exclusive in-person breakfast with WHH’s team in Addis Ababa.

There was, however, a catch. To confirm his attendance, Lieulekal was instructed to pay a refundable 300 Birr “no-show protection” deposit via telebirr. The directions were explicit: he was to transfer the money to an account under the name Girumneh Kassaye, including his full name as payment reference, and send a screenshot of the transfer back through Telegram, along with his personal details and phone number.

Lieulekal complied. He sent the money and the screenshot, convinced the process was legitimate. But soon after, the cracks began to show. The phone number listed for WHH was switched off. The email address provided bounced back as invalid. Even the company website led nowhere.

That’s when the realization hit: he had been scammed. Lieulekal immediately contacted Afriwork to report the incident, sharing the messages, payment details, and the scammer’s account number. 

Lieulekal’s story is far from unique. In Ethiopia, where urban youth unemployment hovers at 27% and the promise of remote work brings the allure of foreign currency, job scams are multiplying and often hiding in plain sight on legitimate-looking platforms. What begins quietly online, a promising role with attractive financial incentives and the convenience of working from home, can end with loud and devastating consequences. For many young people struggling against high unemployment and grasping at digital lifelines, these too-good-to-be-true offers become traps, making Ethiopia’s youth easy prey.

Eyoeal Kefyalew, Chief Marketing Officer at Afriwork, doesn’t sugarcoat it: “Fake job postings and scams have been around forever and, unfortunately, they are not going away.” 

Going back about a decade, job agencies were sprouting everywhere in the capital and other cities. These firms specialized in connecting employers with job seekers, much like their digital counterparts today. Thousands visited these offices in the hope of securing employment, often leaving with high promises.

Soon after, at different stages of the recruitment process, applicants are asked to pay various fees. But these offices often vanished as quickly as they appeared. Within a few months of collecting money without fulfilling their promises, the agencies would shut down and disappear. Victims were left cheated, while the perpetrators re-emerged under a new name and brand, repeating the same cycle.

While such practices still exist, the public has grown more cautious about paying registration fees or making payments before securing employment. However, as the digital shift takes hold, scammers are now finding new ways to embed themselves into formal and prominent job portals.

Kaleab M. Tesema, Founder and CEO of Hahu Jobs, echoes the same sentiment. While he says their platform rarely faces scams nowadays as it only posts company jobs and prohibits private client listings, he admits that some categories, especially sales, often slip through. 

“They tell applicants to pay fees for training or to secure a spot, and sometimes even present proper licenses and documents to look legitimate,” Kaleab said. “Once we got repeated reports, we stopped posting such jobs altogether.” 

In most cases, the pattern is familiar: grand promises of high salaries for minimal hours, perks closer to lottery prizes than real benefits. And most of these offers come from private clients, not registered companies. 

To minimize such carefully orchestrated traps, Afriwork requires companies to submit a valid business license, an official letter, and identification from a general manager. By contrast, private clients only need a contact address a loophole meant to preserve confidentiality for firms discreetly hiring replacements. Scammers exploit this gap.

But if Afriwork demands business licenses from companies, how did the “Welthungerhilfe” listing slip through and lure job seekers like Lieulekal? Eyoeal conceded that fraudsters occasionally go to the extreme lengths of forging a business license and documents convincing enough to bypass the initial checks. “It shows how sophisticated some scams have become,” he noted. 

Which means that job tech platforms now face the dual challenge of not just screening documents but verifying their authenticity against government databases in real time. However, while well-established platforms like Afriwork put in guardrails and screening tools to protect against incursions by fraudsters, there are numerous informal channels thriving on social media. Ranging from predatory individuals and groups sending links, feigning job opportunities, armed with malicious software, to those who try to squeeze out a few hundred from job-seeking youth. Some even go as far as opening temporary offices, while the majority operate in the digital realm.

According to Eyoeal, Afriwork has had to step in on more than one occasion. Recently, they uncovered a scam involving individuals posing as representatives of a humanitarian organization. These fraudsters had posted fake jobs on Afriwork to lure applicants into paying upfront fees. 

“Once exposed, all fraudulent posts were removed, victims were refunded, and the case was reported to authorities.” Says Eyoeal. Their platform posts around 1,500 jobs each month, and Eyoeal provides a modest estimate that five to seven of them turn out to be fake.

Yet not every misleading post is a scam in the traditional sense. Sometimes the job itself simply doesn’t exist. A 2024 survey by Resume Builder of 650 hiring managers found that 40% of companies admitted to posting fake or “ghost” listings, with nearly three in 10 saying such posts are live on their sites or job boards right now. Unlike scams designed to steal money or personal data, these listings are often created by employers themselves, meant to gauge the talent pool, appease overworked staff by suggesting help is on the way, or signal growth to competitors and investors. 

But the gray area can become even more murkier. Kaleab notes that some “legitimate” employers recycle job postings even after filling positions or charge mandatory training fees. “It’s difficult to classify all of these as completely fake,” he explained. “In some cases, candidates may gain skills after paying, but we decided not to take that risk for our users.”.

There are certain telltale signs on some of these fake postings. Requests for prepayment before an interview. Sudden fees for “training materials” or “application processing.” Or, in the case of freelance and contract work, silence and non-payment once the work is submitted. 

Afriwork now actively warns users about such red flags. “If they ask for money before you start, or if something feels off, don’t proceed. Trust your gut and report it,” Eyoeal advises. 

Remote jobs also bring their own risk. “There’s little to no in-person interaction, which makes it difficult to hold anyone accountable. Even if the work is completed, payments may never be deposited to the jobseeker,” he told Shega. 

Hahu Jobs has tightened its checks too, cross-referencing every license and Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN) with Ethiopia’s E-Trade system, while banning foreign phone numbers and email-only registrations, which often link to scams. “Remote jobs are the biggest sector where people get cheated,” Kaleab added. “Too many vanish after the job is done, without paying.”

The issue is reflective of Ethiopia’s broader economic reality. According to the Ethiopian Statistics Service, youth unemployment among those aged 15–24 sits at around 5.4% nationally, but in urban areas, it soars to over 27% for those aged 15–29. In some cities, this means nearly three out of every ten young people looking for work are unable to find it. For them, remote opportunities, especially those promising foreign currency, are not just appealing; they can feel like a lifeline. 

These risks aren’t always confined to Ethiopia's geographical boundaries either. In recent years, reports surfaced of Ethiopians lured abroad, particularly to Myanmar and Cambodia, by promises of high-paying tech jobs, only to find themselves imprisoned in scam compounds. Victims describe 16–20-hour workdays running online fraud schemes, enforced through beatings, threats, and torture. Some have been rescued and repatriated, but many remain trapped. The UN estimates tens of thousands of workers worldwide are currently exploited in such scam syndicates, underscoring the global scale of the problem. 

Technology has erased borders for opportunity but also for crime. A scammer in one country can target job seekers thousands of miles away with ease. Platforms like Afriwork and Hahu Jobs fight back with verification systems, warnings, and refunds, but their reach has limits. “We can only verify the vacancy,” Eyoeal said. “We can’t decide for the job seeker whether they should take the job. At the end of the day, desperation can outweigh caution.”