At a recent teleconference with stakeholders, including the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA), DOL provided an update on the prevailing wage request backlog, and when they anticipate resuming normal processing of prevailing wage requests.

DOL advised that they have completed approximately 80 percent of the H-2B redeterminations that were required due to a federal court order.  DOL anticipates completing the H-2B redeterminations by the week of September 19.

While the bulk of DOL’s resources are currently focused on H-2B redeterminations, DOL confirmed that have begun processing the oldest pending PERM wage requests, proceeding in first-in, first out (FIFO) order by date of submission.  DOL advised that they are working PERM wage requests that were submitted in early June, but DOL did not specify the exact receipt date that was being processed.  In response to questions from stakeholders, DOL clarified that wage requests that asked for the use of an alternate wage survey, or for redetermination of a previously issued wage determination may be taking longer than requests that ask for an OES wage.  At this time, DOL considers all of the pending wage requests “backlogged”, so they will not accept inquiries on pending wage requests.

As DOL completes the H-2B redeterminations, they plan to next focus on issuing initial H-2B wage determinations, and bringing these requests back to a 30 day processing time.  DOL expects to have the H-2B queue back to the 30 day processing time by mid-October.  After the H-2B requests have been made current, DOL will shift those resources to clear the PERM wage request backlog.  DOL has committed to returning PERM wage requests to 60 day processing by the first week of November.
DOL also confirmed that they have no plans to allow filing of PERM applications without a wage determination, as this would require DOL to waive certain regulatory requirements.  DOL advised employers to submit wage requests at least 60 days ahead of the planned date to place recruitment.

Background: DOL issues PWDs to support various visa categories, including H-2A agricultural workers, H-2B temporary workers, H-1B professionals, and permanent labor certification applications (PERM). All PWDs are issued by a single office, and are normally processed on a first-in, first out (FIFO) basis, regardless of which type of PWD is requested. A DOL-issued PWD is not required for filing an H-1B application, but a PWD is required before a PERM application can be filed.

Jackson & Hertogs continues to monitoring this situation, and we continue to submit PERM prevailing wage requests to DOL. However, the increased timeframe for PERM PWDs may impact all stages of PERM recruitment, as PERM recruitment can only be safely conducted after a PWD has issued. Therefore, PERM applications in preparation that have not yet been issued a PWD may experience delays before filing. PERM cases that have already received satisfactory PWDs from DOL are not impacted. Similarly, the suspension of issuing PWDs has no impact on any filed PERM application.
Jackson & Hertogs will provide further updates as news develops.

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