Program Electronic Review Management
The Program Electronic Review Management (“PERM”) electronic system is used by the U.S. Department of Labor (“USDOL”) to process labor certification applications for employment-based green card sponsorship. The purpose of the PERM labor certification is to protect the U.S. labor market by ensuring that hiring a foreign worker will not adversely affect wages or job opportunities for U.S. workers. A U.S. employer is required to test the labor market and certify that there are no able, willing, qualified, and available U.S. workers for the offered position.
The following discussion is an overview of the various stages of the PERM labor certification process:
Step 1: Defining the Position and the Minimum Requirements
For this step, the employer must establish:
- Job title and job duties
- Minimum education, work experience, and skills needed to perform the job
- Location of employment
- Salary offered
Step 2: Prevailing Wage Determination (PWD) Request
Once the position details and minimum requirements are established, the employer submits a request for a prevailing wage determination to USDOL by providing:
- Job duties
- Minimum education, experience and skills required
- Location of employment
Upon issuance of the PWD, if the employer is located in a state that requires Wage Transparency, they must incorporate the PWD data in its recruitment process by listing the salary range.
Step 3: Conducting Recruitment to Recruit U.S. Workers
The employer must test the U.S. labor market by conducting good faith recruitment to find a qualified U.S. workers. Good faith recruitment consists of:
- The employer must place an advertisement with the state workforce agency in the state where the job opportunity is located.
- The employer must also place newspaper ads on two different Sundays. The ads must be placed in a major newspaper of general circulation in the area of intended employment.
- For professional-level positions that require a minimum of a Bachelor’s degree, the employer must engage in three additional forms of recruitment (job boards, employer website, external job search website, on campus recruitment, etc.).
- All advertisements must be conducted within 180 days of submitting the PERM application.
- Additionally, an employer is required to post a Notice of Filing at the worksite for 10 business days.
Step 4: Review Recruitment Results and Interview Candidates
While the recruitment is ongoing, the employer must review all applications; screen and conduct interviews of qualified U.S. applicants; and if any applicants are disqualified, the employer must provide a lawful job-related reason and document it.
Following the completion of the recruitment period, the employer must wait 30 days (often referred to as the “cooling period” or “quiet period”) to allow for additional applicants and to complete the interview process.
Step 5: Filing Labor Certification Application
Following the completion of the recruitment process; the employer may file a PERM labor certification application with USDOL, provided that it has not been able to hire a qualified U.S. worker for the role. The process is completed by:
- Submitting Form ETA 9089 electronically through the USDOL’s Foreign Labor Application Gateway (“FLAG”).
- Current wait times are lengthy and can exceed 15-18 months.
- USDOL may approve, deny, or audit the recruitment process.
- If it chooses to audit, the DOL will request more evidence to support the application, adding several more months to the process.
- In some instances, USDOL may require supervised recruitment.
If the PERM application is successful, the employer can proceed to filing the I-140 immigrant petition with USCIS on behalf of the foreign worker. The PERM labor certification application is a highly complex, multi-step procedure to test the U.S. labor market. It requires careful planning,
