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The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced on December 03, 2020 that in compliance to the court orders, it will change the prevailing wages to the data as it is was on Oct 07, 2020.
Why was the increased wage rule bad for companies?
The Department of Labor (DOL) on Oct 08, 2020 had significantly increased the prevailing wage requirement for H-1B, H-1B1 and E-3 visa programs. In some cases the expected salary to be paid to a foreign national employee with no experience had jumped up by 40%.
With this change, the prevailing wages for speciality occupation will go back to where they were prior to October 08, 2020. This would effect employers filing H-1B and PERM (Green Card) petitions for their employees.
When would the changes take place?
Here's a timeline of when the DHS plans to make changes to its systems to reflect the pre-Oct 08 wages -
FLC Data Center - This website is used to determine the prevailing wages for all speciality occupations. The correct data will start reflecting on the website on December 04, 2020 at 12 noon (Eastern Time).
FLAG system - The Foreign Labor Application Gateway (FLAG) system will start reflecting the corrected wages starting December 04, 2020 at 5:59AM (Eastern Time). Some outages can be expected while the data is refreshed.
How does this effect the cases in progress?
The National Prevailing Wage Center (NPWC) has temporarily paused the processing of pending or new Form ETA-9141, used for filing LCA and PERM applications. The services will resume on December 15, 2020 and will use the corrected data that was in effect on October 07, 2020 for prevailing wage determination.
Can I request a review of the prevailing wage?
If your wage determination happened based on higher prevailing wage between October 08, 2020 and December 04, 2020, you can request a review through your immigration attorney.
Content in this publication is not intended as legal advice, nor should it be relied on as such. For additional information on the issues discussed, consult a WayLit-affiliated attorney or another qualified professional.