A no-show job or fictitious employment is a paid position that ostensibly requires the holder to perform duties, but for which no work, or even attendance, is actually expected.
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.
[1] Philip Carlo, in his biography of Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso, writes that no-show jobs are "a classic Mafia setup" and that such positions were highly prized among mobsters.
[2] 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".