Businesses who are considering the employment of immigrants are required to follow the laws pertaining to hiring international workers. Much of this information is provided by the United States Department of Labor, State Workforce Agency, Bureau of Labor Statistics, and the National Prevailing Wage Center.
General Permanent Labor Guidelines
The Program Electronic Review Management has made it faster for employers to understand the guidelines and apply for immigrant labor certification. However, companies who want to hire foreign workers might require further explanation of what is expected of them.
For instance, they need to follow these rules for hiring domestic before international employees:
- Before placing immigration advertising, ads recruiting U.S. workers must be printed in local newspapers that reach the most number of people in a community.
- Ads announcing permanent job openings must be printed in a couple of Sunday newspapers.
- U.S. labor recruitment must occur within 30 -180 days before a company applies for PERM labor certification to hire foreigners.
- The employer must fill out an ETA-9089 form online or they must send this form by mail directly to the appropriate government agency.
- The DOL does not allow faxed ETA-9089 submissions.
Hiring U.S. workers has been set as a priority as a way to allow American workers to have access to the same job opportunities as foreign persons. Once the recruitment of domestic employees is complete, this opens up chances to foreign workers if a company’s PERM labor certification ad is approved.
Upon PERM approval, employer immigration advertising begins. During this process, the foreigner normally is required to demonstrate having more advanced qualifications than a current U.S. citizen. Oftentimes, international employees use this opportunity to seek a work visa as a first step toward becoming a naturalized U.S. citizen.
In some cases, employers also become eligible to hire temporary workers. The rules for temporary employment, however, might entail following a slightly different set of requirements. In any case, the priority for foreign job applicants usually is to obtain the legal right to work in the United States. After that, they often apply for permanent residence status before becoming an official citizen.
