Department of Labor (DOL) announced in an October 28th meeting with representatives from the American Council on International Personnel (ACIP), the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) and other groups that it has been transitioning to a new contractor, and expects the change to result in both better PERM case processing and increased efforts to ensure program compliance. Employers should be aware that there could be some temporary processing slowdowns during the transition.

DOL further stated that PERM program users could soon see improvements in customer service, but should also expect more frequent audits and increased use of supervised recruitment.

DOL additionally disclosed that a new version of the PERM application, Form ETA 9089, is expected to go live in the near future and that the revised form will be fully integrated into DOL’s online iCERT portal.  In other PERM news, agency officials noted that the labor certification backlog was cut in half in Fiscal Year 2010, and there were general improvements in processing times overall. Enhancements are expected to the iCERT portal and in labor condition application (LCA) processing.  As of September 30th, the agency was working on non-audited cases that were filed in July 2010 and audited cases filed in August 2008.

Immigration Solutions will continue to report on  developments from the Department of Labor as they are released.