Update on DOL Prevailing Wage Determinations

Many of our clients and readers are asking us on updates regarding the Department of Labor’s (DOL) prevailing wage determination process.  We are happy to report that according to DOL reports and according to our first-hand experience, prevailing wage determinations are issued and they are (slowly) starting to return to normal.

Background on the DOL Prevailing Wage Suspension

As a reminder, in August, DOL announced that they are temporarily suspending the issuance of non-H-2B prevailing wage determinations in an attempt to focus 100% of their resources towards completing the re-issuance of few thousand H-2B prevailing wage determinations under a court order.  Please see our August 2011 article on the prevailing wage suspension for more details.

Current Prevailing Wage Processing Times

As a result of the backlog of prevailing wage determinations, our expectations that prevailing wage determinations would take a significant period of time are confirmed.   Currently, we see prevailing wage determinations issued 10-12 weeks after filing of the request.   This is substantially higher than the 4-5 week average we used to see before DOL was ordered to redo previous H-2B prevailing wage determinations.   Our hope is that prevailing wage determination processing times would continue to go down as DOL is working through the backlog of requests.

Some PERM and H-1B Filings Continue to be Affected

Despite the fact that prevailing wage determinations are being issued, the delays of at least a couple of months for a prevailing wage determination remains a major concern for certain PERM/H-1B applicants who need to file their PERM/H-1B urgently.  Our office (along with many other immigration stakeholders) have voiced our concerns that many foreign workers who must file their PERM and/or H-1B in order to be able to fit within AC21 guidelines, expiring recruitment of other urgent reasons may be negatively affected by the slow processing of prevailing wages.   A proposal to DOL to create a procedure to accommodate expedited processing of prevailing wage requests has been submitted, but without any result (as of the time of this article).

Additionally, as a higher number of prevailing wage determinations are issued over the past and coming weeks, it is likely that a higher number of PERM cases will be filed over the upcoming few months — resulting in an increase in the PERM processing times over the next 6-9 months.

Conclusion

We welcome the fact that DOL has started processing and issuing prevailing wage determinations, and while we remain hopeful that DOL will continue allocating resources to bring prevailing wage processing times down to a month, we remain concerned that a number of foreign workers may lose PERM/H-1B benefits due to these delays.   Please do not hesitate to contact us if we can be of any assistance or if we can provide case analysis as part of our free initial consultation.

By | Last Updated: May 20th, 2017| Categories: Articles, DOL, H-1B, News, PERM|

About the Author: Dimo Michailov

Dimo Michailov
Dimo has over 15 years of experience in US immigration including employment-based immigration benefits, corporate compliance and family based immigration. He represents corporate and individual clients in a wide range of cross-border immigration matters including mobility of key foreign executives and managers, specialized knowledge workers, and foreign nationals with extraordinary ability.

The Capitol Immigration Law Group has been serving the business community for over 15 years and is one of the most widely respected immigration law firms focused solely on U.S. employment-based immigration.   Disclaimer:  we make all efforts to provide timely and accurate information; however, the information in this article may become outdated or may not be applicable to a specific set of facts.  It is not to be construed as legal advice.