The Perils of PERM

In May 2002 the Department of Labor (DOL) published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking for a revamped labor certification program—the PERM program.

As background, labor certification is generally the first step in the employment-based green card sponsorship process. To obtain labor certification, the sponsoring employer must establish that it was unable to find willing, qualified and able U.S. workers for the job position. There are generally two ways for an employer to file labor certification application. Under the traditional method, the employer files an application with the State Workforce Agency (SWA). After the application is reviewed, the SWA closely supervises the employer’s recruitment effort to assess whether U.S. workers are indeed unavailable. If the labor certification application process passes muster with the SWA, then the case is transmitted to the Federal DOL for final adjudication. Under the fast track method, known as Request for Reduction in Recruitment (RIR), the employer establishes the unavailability of U.S. workers through its own recruitment efforts prior to filing the application with the SWA. In both the traditional and RIR filings, the Federal DOL ultimately grants or denies the labor certification application.