DOL Performance Report for 2009Q2

The Department of Labor (”DOL”) has released a quarterly report covering the second quarter of 2009 (ending on June 31, 2009) which report indicates the performance measurements for four categories of labor certifications performed by DOL:

H-1B Labor Condition Applications (”LCA”).  The target performance rate set by DOL is seven (business) days.  For the second quarter, the performance rate was 99.11% of the goal, meaning that DOL responded to nearly all  LCA applications within the mandatory seven days.  This however, reflects statistics from the old, pre-iCert, system which used to provide instant LCA certification.  Under the new iCert LCA system, the LCAs are reviewed manually and from our experience an LCA takes up to 7 business days to certify.  The iCert system went into effect on June 30, 2009.

PERM Labor Certifications.  The target performance rate is review within six months of filing of PERM.  Unfortunately, the reported rate of PERM certifications which fell within the target of six months is only 17%.  Although this is a slight increase compared to 2009Q1 performance rate of 11%, it is still a very low performance rate and confirms our experience from earlier this year that DOL takes upward of 9 months to certify PERM applications.  DOL’s explanation is that such increased processing time is due to increased integrity checks in light of declining economy and continued PERM filings for positions where there are U.S. workers available (for example, financial services).  DOL plans to institute a new electronic filing system for PERM labor certifications around July 1, 2010.

H-2A and H-2B.  The performance target for H-2A is 15 business days while the performance target for H-2B is 60 days.  The on-target performance was 54% (increase from last quarter’s 38%) for H-2A and 87% (increase from last quarter’s 31%) for H-2B.  An important note is that the H-2B regulations were revised as of January 2009 and the numbers do not reflect properly the new H-2B rules.  It should be also noted that the H-2B program performance incrase is a seasonal occurrence and even taking into consideration this performance improvement, the overall performance is under the annual target.

Conclusion.  There seems to be increased delays overall in some categories.  Most troubling are the significant PERM delays.  We have written previously about the delays in PERM processing (which seem to be improving slightly) but  the PERM performance chart for the past eight quarters suggests that return to 6-month processing PERM is far.  Additionally, LCAs for H-1B applications now take up to seven business days which adds a week of processing to all H-1B applications.  For employers who are not part of the iCert system, there may be an additional 2-5 days iCert employer verification period.   As a result, we urge our clients to factor this processing time when planning business and employment decisions with respect to H-1B workers.