The U.S. Labor Department's Backlog Elimination Centers (BECs) recently announced that they now have approximately 345,000 pending labor certifications (requesting processing under either supervised recruitment, reduction in recruitment (RIR), or special handling). A few cases remain at the New York and San Francisco regional offices, which should be closed by January 2006.

While 90% of the pending labor certifications have now been entered into the BEC systems, the BECs have performed only partial data input, in order to quickly get a full accounting of pending cases.  As a result, there will be no "45 day letters" issued on those labor certifications until full data entry has been completed upon re-review.  (For more information on the 45 day letters, please see our prior BEC update from February 25, 2005.)  So far, at least 100,000 cases have only partial data entry, meaning that many tens of thousands of 45 day letters have not yet issued.  The BEC will endeavor to enter all relevant data regarding these cases into its systems, so as to be able to issue the remaining 45 day letters.

At the moment, the BECs have adjudicated only RIR labor certifications, but they state that they are ramping up to handle the backlog of supervised recruitment cases, including instructions regarding prevailing wage and job order instructions.  The BECs have adjudicated "tens of thousands of cases" to date, though no exact numbers have been published.

Jackson and Hertogs will continue to monitor developments at the BECs, and advise clients accordingly.  Stay tuned for further updates.

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