The job market is so hot right now that workers are 'ghosting' employers without even saying goodbye

Gleb Leonov/Strelka Institute/Flickr

• More and more workers are "ghosting" their employers by not showing up to work and cutting off contact with the company, according to The Washington Post.
• It's a sign of the tight labor market, the Post said, as there are more job openings in the US than people looking for work.
• Quitting a job abruptly is usually a sign of poor communication between employers and management, experts say.

A notorious millennial dating practice is starting to creep into the workplace: ghosting.

According to the Washington Post's Danielle Paquette, employers are noticing with increasing frequency that workers are leaving their jobs by simply not showing up and cutting off contact with their companies.

"A number of contacts said that they had been 'ghosted,' a situation in which a worker stops coming to work without notice and then is impossible to contact," the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago noted in a report this month.

According to the Post, experts are blaming the uptick in workplace ghosting on the labor market. Unemployment is at its lowest point in decades. And there are more job openings than there are people looking for jobs, emboldening workers to skip the awkward conversations with their bosses and move on to other opportunities.

"Why hassle with a boss and a bunch of out-processing, when literally everyone has been hiring?" labor economist Michael Hicks told the Post.

Predictably, experts on workplace etiquette frown upon ghosting your employers, as well as any other mean-spirited method of resigning. It's a surefire way to burn bridges and tank your reputation, not just with your higher-ups, but likely any coworkers you planned on keeping in touch with, too.

"Even colleagues who don't have a stake in it are going to see that and think, 'Wow, that's really unprofessional, that person is so immature,'" Caroline Ceniza-Levine, a career coach with SixFigureStart, told Business Insider's Áine Cain last year.

Related: I asked experts if it's ever okay to quit your job on the spot - here's what they said

When people quit their jobs without notice, it's often a symptom of a bad communication between management and employees, said Caleb Papineau, an executive at employee-survey firm TINYpulse.

"Quitting a job abruptly is neither good for the employee nor the employer. Employees that feel unheard and under-appreciated at times can feel as if they have no choice but to leave abruptly," Papineau told Business Insider.

Instead, he recommends find time to talk to a manager rather than make a hasty, emotional decision.

"Have a plan, be professional, and don't burn bridges unless you have to," he said.