from November 2005 visa bulletin
http://travel.state.gov/visa/frvi/bulletin/bulletin_2712.html
D. EMPLOYMENT PREFERENCE VISA AVAILABILITY
The backlog reduction efforts of both Citizenship and Immigration Services and the Department of Labor continue to result in very heavy demand for Employment-based numbers. The amount of cases currently being processed is sufficient to use all available numbers in many categories. The level of demand in the Employment categories is expected to be far in excess of the annual limits, and once established, cut-off date movements are likely to be slow.
WHAT CAUSES THE ESTABLISHMENT OF CUT-OFF DATES?
The Visa Office subdivides the annual preference and foreign state limitations specified in the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) into twelve monthly allotments. The totals of documentarily qualified applicants that have been reported to VO are compared each month with the numbers available for the next regular allotment and numbers are allocated to reported applicants in order of their priority dates, the oldest dates first.
If there are sufficient numbers in a particular category to satisfy all reported documentarily qualified demand, the category is considered “Current.” For example, if the Employment Third preference monthly target is 5,000 and there are only 3,000 applicants, the category is considered “Current”.
Whenever the total of documentarily qualified applicants in a category exceeds the supply of numbers available for allotment for the particular month, the category is considered to be “oversubscribed” and a visa availability cut-off date is established. The cut-off date is the priority date of the first documentarily qualified applicant who could not be accommodated for a visa number. For example, if the Employment Third preference monthly target is 5,000 and there are 15,000 applicants, a cut-off date would be established so that only 5,000 numbers would be used, and the cut-off date would be the priority date of the 5,001st applicant.
WILL THERE BE CUT-OFF DATES FOR ANY ADDITIONAL FOREIGN STATES IN THE FIRST AND SECOND PREFERENCE CATEGORIES?
It may be necessary to establish a cut-off date for the “All Chargeability Areas” Second preference category at some point during the second half of the fiscal year. It is too early to estimate whether future demand will warrant such action. As of October 1st, cut-off dates for the First and Second preferences for China and India were established due to heavy demand; cut-off date movement is expected to be limited until a demand pattern has been determined.
WHY ARE THERE CUT-OFF DATES THIS YEAR AS OPPOSED TO PREVIOUS YEARS, WHEN THE CATEGORIES WERE CURRENT?
While the Employment categories had been “Current” for almost four years, several important factors affected the decision to implement cut-offs for FY-2006.
Prior to July 2001, demand for Employment numbers was such that cut-off dates were in effect for many categories, and that is the case once again for FY-2006.
The reasons the Employment categories had become current were:
The American Competitiveness in the Twenty-First Century Act (AC21) recaptured a “pool” of 131,000 Employment numbers unused in fiscal years 1999 and 2000, and allowed those recaptured numbers to be used by the oversubscribed countries, and
The substantial decline in demand for numbers for adjustment of status cases prevented the annual limits from being reached for several years.
In FY-2006, we are faced with continuing heavy demand due to the DHS and DOL backlog reduction efforts, along with an Employment limit which is approximately 40% lower than that of FY-2005. The lower annual Employment limit is a result of the virtual elimination of the “pool” of recaptured AC21 numbers, returning us to the pre-July 2001 situation.
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Once again; "demand", "documentarily qualified applicants" is USCIS demand for visa numbers from department of state. Look at the last paragraph "the substantial decline in demand for numbers for adjustment of status cases prevented the annual limits from being reached for several years".... There was always more labors at state level, federal level, I-140's, etc. for all of these years but they didn't retrogress it in 2001-2005. Only in 2005 they realized they broke the law and are now doing it exactly the way the law is written.
Back in 2005 the reason eb3 went unavailable is because in April 2005; uscis approved 35,000 employment base greencards based on pressure from Ombudsmen; it went unavailable shortly thereafter. If many of the cases which are stuck in name check become adjudication ready then uscis has demand for the visa numbers then you will also see the same issue.
Round and round we go...
), and last year they guessed wrong to the extent of 11000 unused green cards.