Prevailing wage determinations issued by the Wage Research Unit, Labor Market Information Division of the California Employment Development Department (EDD) are currently taking more than two (2) months to be processed.  As recently as February 2005, EDD would issue prevailing wage determinations within two weeks of receiving the employer's request.  The issuance of a prevailing wage determination by a State Workforce Agency (SWA) is a prerequisite to any PERM labor certification filing.  Even if all other steps of the PERM recruitment and application are complete, without a prevailing wage determination from a SWA, the PERM application cannot be filed with DOL.

Consequently, the over two month backlog for issuance of prevailing wage determinations has significantly slowed preparation times for PERM applications for positions which have worksites in California.  Each SWA provides prevailing wage determinations under its own processes.  As a result, some states return prevailing wage determinations in as little as 24 hours compared to California's two month-plus turnaround.

Jackson & Hertogs will continue to monitor this situation, and will provide additional updates as more information becomes available.

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