Labor Certification (PERM)

What It Means

Labor certification is the first step in most EB-2 and EB-3 employment-based green card cases and is administered by the Department of Labor under INA section 212(a)(5) and 20 CFR Part 656. The Program Electronic Review Management (PERM) system, introduced in March 2005, replaced the older reduction-in-recruitment process and substantially automated what had been a paper-intensive workflow. The employer must first obtain a Prevailing Wage Determination (Form ETA-9141) from the National Prevailing Wage Center, then conduct a strict menu of recruitment steps: a 30-day job order with the state workforce agency, two Sunday print advertisements, and three additional recruitment steps from a statutory list (job fair, website posting, employee referral program, campus recruiting, professional journal, etc.) for professional positions. A notice of filing must be posted at the worksite for 10 consecutive business days. After a mandatory quiet period, the employer files Form ETA-9089 with DOL. DOL audit rates have historically ranged from 15% to 30%, and adjudication timelines for audited cases can stretch past 18 months. Once certified, the employer has 180 days to file Form I-140 with USCIS. A certified PERM is category- and employer-specific and locks in the priority date. EB-1 extraordinary ability, EB-1 multinational manager, EB-2 National Interest Waiver, and EB-5 investor cases do not require PERM. For backlog-country beneficiaries, PERM strategy (including wage level selection and job requirement drafting) has major downstream consequences because the certified position defines the basis for any future AC21 porting.

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