A no-show job is a paid position that ostensibly requires the holder to perform duties, but for which no work, or even attendance, is actually expected. The awarding of no-show jobs is a form of
political or
corporate corruption.
A no-work job is a similar paid position for which no work is expected, but for which attendance at the job site is required. Upon auditing or inspection, personnel assigned to a no-work job may be falsely justified to the controllers as waiting for work tasks or not being needed "right now". For example: no-show or no-work jobs may be used during illegal activities for scamming a construction project to generate extra payout or to provide
alibis.
Organized crime and corruption
''
The New York Times'' has written: "The no-show job has long played a central role in the annals of
crime and corruption in New York, offering an efficient way for crooked politicians,
union officials,
mobsters and all manner of miscreants to funnel kickbacks and bribes to friends, family members, business associates and even themselves".
Philip Carlo
Philip Carlo (April 18, 1949 – November 8, 2010) was an American journalist and best selling biographer of Thomas Pitera, Richard Kuklinski, Anthony Casso, and Richard Ramirez. Carlo had amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), commonly known as "Lo ...
, in his biography of
Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso
Anthony or Antony is a masculine given name, derived from the ''Antonii'', a '' gens'' ( Roman family name) to which Mark Antony (''Marcus Antonius'') belonged. According to Plutarch, the Antonii gens were Heracleidae, being descendants of Anton ...
, writes that no-show jobs are "a classic
Mafia setup" and that such positions were highly prized among mobsters. A 2012 report of the
Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor found that "no-show jobs held by relatives of mobsters and other well-connected people continue to vex government officials trying to make the ports more efficient and more competitive".
In the past, no-show jobs were also an aspect of corruption in
Boston. No-show jobs continue to play a role in corruption cases in
Chicago, where they have had a long history.
Corporate fraud
In the corporate world, "no-show" employees—also called ghost employees—usually have some family or personal relationship to a manager or supervisor. In the corporate world, this is considered a type of
payroll fraud. Fraud
audit
An audit is an "independent examination of financial information of any entity, whether profit oriented or not, irrespective of its size or legal form when such an examination is conducted with a view to express an opinion thereon.” Auditing ...
s seek to detect such practices.
[Leonard W. Vona, ''The Fraud Audit: Responding to the Risk of Fraud in Core Business Systems'' (John Wiley & Sons, 2011), pp. 214-15.]
See also
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Sinecure
A sinecure ( or ; from the Latin , 'without', and , 'care') is an office, carrying a salary or otherwise generating income, that requires or involves little or no responsibility, labour, or active service. The term originated in the medieval chu ...
*
Ñoqui
*
Featherbedding
*
Ghost soldiers
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White monkey
References
{{reflist
Corruption
Organized crime activity
Organized crime terminology