PERM - Labor Certification

Bona Fide Reasons for Withdrawal during Supervised Recruitment (SR)

11 years ago By Chief Editor

Question details

Employers may choose to withdraw cases undergoing SR for many reasons, such as the employee terminating his employment, the employee obtaining a green card through other means (such as marriage), or the costs of the required recruitment. In determining any employer-wide consequences of withdrawal during the SR process, does DOL consider the explanation as to why the SR case is being withdrawn? How can an employer best provide an explanation why the SR case is being withdrawn?

DOL indicates that it does not monitor or track particular reasons for withdrawal. DOL does, however, pay attention to the rate of withdrawal both for individual employers and overall. The withdrawal rate has decreased, but at one point was more than 10%. Such a high rate of withdrawal caused DOL concern.

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Use of Monster.com for Supervised Recruitment (SR) Cases

11 years ago By Chief Editor

Question details

Several newspapers (Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Sun-Times, etc.) place their online ads on Monster.com. When the SR instructions direct the placement of an ad on these newspaper websites AND on Monster.com, this means placement of the same listing twice on the same website, which is redundant. Has DOL indicated that a single advertisement on Monster.com is sufficient when the required newspaper uses Monster.com to place job advertisements online?

DOL has suggested e-mailing the SR e-mail address for clarification on particular recruitment instructions. Note, however, that the employer should still follow the recruitment instructions. The focus is whether a full labor market test was conducted that provides U.S. workers with opportunity to apply for the position. DOL is not intentionally seeking duplicate ads.

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Consolidation of Identical Cases for Supervised Recruitment

11 years ago By Chief Editor

Question details

DOL has indicated that it would make sense to consolidate recruitment for Supervised Recruitment (SR) cases that are identical. Has DOL made any progress on publishing a standard that can be followed to consolidate recruitment for SR?

DOL has indicated that it is generally not opposed to consolidation of recruitment efforts in appropriate cases, and a request can be made to the SR processing e-mail box for consolidation. Even where cases are consolidated for recruitment, however, DOL will still require individual recruitment reports for each SR application.

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Processing Times or Delays in Supervised Recruitment (SR)

11 years ago By Chief Editor

Question details

The processing of supervised recruitment cases is still extremely slow. Cases filed directly into supervised recruitment in January and February 2012 have still not received the initial communication from DOL or any recruitment instructions. Based on reports, it appears that DOL is not following FIFO (first in, first out)on SR cases, as there are SR cases with priority dates ranging from May 2011 to October 2011, and draft ads/ad corrections have been submitted as early as February 2012 and as late as July 2012. Has DOL provided details on SR processing dates and times?

DOL indicates that it expects to see a significant increase in the speed of processing of SR cases as well as cases under audit. Staff members who normally work on SR cases were temporarily reassigned to identify and process “straggler” cases. That project has been completed as of October 1, 2012, and DOL has moved those staff members back to their normal work. This should result in much faster processing of both SR and audit cases.

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Qualification for Labor Certification

11 years ago By Chief Editor

Question details

Who is considered a qualified U.S. worker for purposes of a Labor Certification?

For purposes of a Labor Certification, a qualified U.S. worker is defined as a U.S. citizen, a U.S. Legal Permanent Resident (Green Card holder), or other specially authorized alien (such as an asylee or refugee) who satisfies the minimum job requirements and is willing to take the position under the conditions and terms described in the Labor Certification application.

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PERM - Labor Certification, DOL, Government Error

11 years ago By Chief Editor

We filed a PERM application under EB-2 for a Senior Programmer Analyst’s position early this year. Three months later, U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) issued an Audit Notification. Immediately following our response, DOL denied the application, citing that our audit response did not include a copy of the job order.

Agency

BALCA
DOL

Green Card

PERM Processing Times (as of 10/2/2012)

11 years ago By Chief Editor

According to DOL updates as of 10/2/2012, they are working on PERM application filed in the following months:

Analyst Reviews :    August 2 2012

Audits :  February 29 2012

Reconsideration Requests to the CO :   December 1 , 2011

Gov't Error Reconsiderations :   Current