Department of Labor Stakeholder Meeting: PERM Updates
On December 12, 2013, Department of Labor Office of Foreign Labor Certification (OFLC) held a stakeholder meeting in which stakeholders from American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA), National Association of Foreign Student Advisors (NAFSA), Council for Global Immigration (CGI), and American Bar Association (ABA) were present. This is an overview of some of the issues discussed during the meeting that may be of interest to our readers.
Economy and Unemployment: In response to a question about the effect of economy on the PERM adjudication standards, OFLC states that the standards of adjudication for individual applications are not changed by OLC in response to changes in economy though reports of large layoffs may trigger review of PERM filings.
Supervised Recruitment (SR): The combined denial and withdrawal rate for SR cases in Fiscal Year (FY) 2012 was 52%, in FY 2013 was 69%, and to date in FY 2014 is 95%. The denial rate for audited cases during this same time frame has stayed at 33%. Also OFLC stated the number of PERM applications received to date in FY 2014 are slightly more than those received during the same time period last year.
PERM Engineering Degree Denials: Our readers may remember that last year DOL issued some denials for PERM applications filed for IT positions requiring “Engineering” degree on the grounds that a degree in Engineering, without being specific about the field, was overly broad and therefore not an appropriate minimum requirement for the position. OFLC confirmed that it is no longer denying such applications and is working with Board of Alien Labor Certification Appeals (BALCA) to bring back the cases that has been sent to it.
Job Duties modification following Request for Information (RFI) for Prevailing Wage: As part of prevailing wage determination process, DOL at times issues a RFI to clarify job requirements of the offered position. A response to the RFI may lead to changes in the job duties and the DOL in the past has said that if the RFI response leads to a substantial changes to the job duties then the additional information from the RFI should be included on the ETA 9089. During the stakeholder meeting, OFLC reconfirmed the DOL position saying the employer is responsible for determining if the additional information is substantive thereby requiring and amendment to the job description on the PERM to reflect the change in the PWD.
Comment: We welcome the information provided by the OFLC and are thankful to it for addressing some of the concerns of stakeholders. The next stakeholder’s meeting is scheduled for April 9, 2014. We will provide updates to our readers about this meeting once they become available to us.