Business Immigration Weekly for October 31, 2014

DEPARTMENT OF LABOR RELEASES LATEST PERMANENT LABOR CERTIFICATION STATISTICS

The Department of Labor (DOL) recently issued its statistics for Fiscal Year 2014 for the Permanent Labor Certification Program. For this year, the DOL received a total of 74,936 PERM applications, certified 62,633 and denied 4,349. Additionally, employers withdrew a total of 4,016 applications. In evaluating the DOL trends from Fiscal Year 2012 to the present the denial rate is currently at 6% from around 11% at the beginning of the fiscal year and the appeals rate has almost tripled doubled from Fiscal Year 2012 from 3% to its current 9%. Audit rates have decreased from 45% at the end of Fiscal Year 2012, but are on the rise at 30% currently from 25% for the first quarter of Fiscal Year 2014. Fiscal Year 2012 was the last year in which the DOL issued any statistics on the amount of applications in supervised recruitment.

The majority of PERM applications continue to be filed in the Computer and Mathematical fields followed by the following fields: Architecture and Engineering, Management, Business and Financial Operations, and Education, Training and Library. Most PERM applications are filed for worksites or headquarters located in California, Texas, New York, New Jersey and Washington. The Professional, Scientific and Technical Services remains the top industry, followed by Manufacturing, Information, Educational Services and Finance and Insurance. The top visa classifications are H-1B, L-1, F-1 and TN. The countries with the highest application rates are India, China, Canada, South Korea and the Philippines. Lastly, the majority of PERM applications are filed for positions requiring at least an advanced degree (55%).