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by augustus0 2158 days ago
Hi Peter,

I work for a large tech company that has recently announced internally that they will be putting all PERM filings on pause indefinitely. The reasons cited are:

— The 10-day in-house job posting is of dubious quality now because there is no one at the office to to see it (it's closed and empty because of Covid), and they believe the Department of Labor may notice this and refuse applications.

— Because of the current administration's outlook on immigration, they're worried that more filings will be audited/rejected, which could lead to more oversight on future filings for the company, making things more difficult.

They said a number of times that pausing all PERMs is a proactive measure — there have been no issues so far, but they want to make sure there never are any.

The basic premises seem to make sense, but it puts all of us running through the process in a difficult position. They wouldn't give any timeline for how long such a pause would last, but reading between the lines with office closures, it seems that it would last at least all of 2020, and probably well into 2021.

My question: Is what my company doing reasonable, or is it more of a situation where they're adopting a very conservative stance to reduce their own risk down to zero, even at the cost of putting all its employees into immigration limbo?

Thanks!

2 comments

Really both. First, your company can post the notice of filing electronically so that's not a real issue. But yes, there's a chance that PERM filing will be scrutinized more closely and audited and denied with greater frequency. But that hasn't happened yet so I guess in the end I don't buy that approach. I just don't think it makes sense to base decisions on things that might happen.
> PERM filing will be scrutinized more closely and audited and denied with greater frequency. But that hasn't happened yet

Interesting to see you think that way.

My wife recently got her PERM application denied. The reasoning was that the in-house job posting did not include the salary for the position. We think it was a clerical mistake on part of the company attorney and we are trying to move on by looking at other options.

However, last year her colleague obtained PERM with the same job posting template. It gave us the impression that indeed the PERM filings are being scrutinized and denied with greater frequency.

The notice of filing must include salary information.
Would posting this on internal Wiki & publishing the link to all employees a reasonable alternative during COVID?
Hi Peter,

I asked my company if there was any electronic alternative for the NOF and they insisted there wasn't. Do you have any sources I could use to prove this to them? I tried searching something myself but I couldn't find anything concrete.

I have this very same question. My company announced something similar – that they wouldn't even be doing PERM recruiting because of the posting requirement, and the risk of getting in trouble with DOL. I too work for a large tech company.