The Permanent Foreign Labor Certification process is a set of procedures and applications overseen by the U.S. Department of Labor (or “DOL”). Most people refer to the overall process as “PERM,” which is an acronym for the DOL’s online application system - Program Electronic Resource Management. The purpose of the Labor Certification process is first to protect U.S. workers by ensuring employers are not using it to circumvent the existing domestic labor market. Once an employer can establish that, the focus of the DOL turns to assisting employers by allowing them to access labor from outside the U.S. in order to ensure their business can continue to thrive. On this page, we will discuss the steps of the process and give rough timelines for their completion as of early- to mid-2021. Keep in mind that the processes described below are almost entirely tasks for Ruby Law Group to undertake on a client’s behalf - we have tried and tested procedures in place to navigate this program as quickly and successfully as possible on behalf of our clients.

The first step of the process involves requesting the DOL to provide what is called a Prevailing Wage Determination. An employer must pay overseas candidates they hire the greater of the local prevailing wage or whatever they pay their similarly-situated entry-level employees. In most cases, we can look the prevailing wage up on the foreign labor certification data center website, but the DOL is required to review our submission to ensure we have categorized and described the job correctly. The concept here is that each job will have a different prevailing wage based not only on the job duties, but also on its location. Expect this to take about four months.

In parallel, our office will help the employer undertake a process called “Recruitment,” which is how we demonstrate the employer cannot find enough labor supply in the local market. In general, our employer clients are hiring for multiple positions, so this process may turn up potential candidates while also leaving openings unfilled, which we can staff with the overseas candidates. Years ago, we waited to have the prevailing wage determination back before starting this process, but expanding DOL processing times and the availability of reliable wage data have pushed us to combine these processes in order to accelerate the process. Recruitment involves taking specific steps to advertise openings in a variety of ways. RLG will assist in developing ad text, placing them, and helping ensure the employer contacts any applicants. At the end of this process, we will prepare a “Recruitment Report” to show all steps were done properly. The start-to-finish of this process is 60 days, but it is done at the same time as the latter half of awaiting the prevailing wage.

Once we have the prevailing wage determination back and the recruitment process is complete, we may begin filing for Permanent Foreign Labor Certifications on behalf of selected candidates from overseas. These must be filed within 180 days of the first day of recruitment and they are submitted electronically to the DOL. It is a fairly straightforward application where we describe the job, explain the recruitment steps that were taken, and list out the overseas candidate who will fill it. The employer must answer a short electronic questionnaire for each candidate to confirm their intention to hire them if the labor certification is approved. In many cases, these will be approved in a few months. In others, some are randomly selected for a process in which we must provide proof that our recruitment steps were done properly. All-in, we should count on about 4 months here as well.

From there, the process becomes less employer-centered and the focus shifts to the individual candidates. For each of them, we file the approved labor certification along with some additional supporting documentation to U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services, which process immigration petitions. From there, the approved case is passed to the National Visa Center, an arm of the Department of State in New Hampshire, which collects documents on behalf of the embassies and consulates around the world. Once the candidates have submitted their personal documents and undergone a Department of State background check, they are called for an interview in their home country where they are issued a visa to move to the U.S. as permanent residents in order to fill the full-time, permanent job offered by the employer. Collectively, these two steps are likely to be in the roughly 4 to 8 month range.

We are the first to acknowledge that this is not a fast process. There are several steps and mostly they must be taken sequentially. That may render this process useless to many employers and smaller businesses. However, for employers constantly in a hiring crunch and always looking for staffing help or methods to supplement their conventional hiring tactics, we can offer a lifeline by helping employers tap into a large supply of willing labor found around the globe.