Labor Substitution - Some facts

[StillAlive]

Here are some interesting facts found from official final rule of labor substitution. Feel free to comment and discuss

• 
  The Department assumed that of the 115,952 PERM
  applications filed between July 1, 2005 and June 30, 2006, five (5)
  percent would expire prior to filing with DHS within 180 days

• 
  Analysis also assumed that 10 percent of all employer applications will
  request substitution of the alien

• 
  Estimated that approximately 4,928 additional permanent labor
  certification applications will be filed with the Department each
  year as a result of this provision

• 
  As of April 2007, a total of approximately 70,000 immigrant petitions were pending at USCIS in immigrant preferences categories that were identified by DHS as dependent upon a labor certification

• One attorney filed approximately 2,700 fraudulent
  applications with DOL for fees of up to $20,000 per application

• We have significantly reduced the number of backlogged
  applications from an estimated 365,000 to less than half that number.
  This effort places us on target to meet our goal of eliminating the
  backlog by September 30, 2007

• We have no programmatic evidence that applications filed under
  section 245(i) are particular sources of fraud

• Labor certifications were being sold for as much as $120,000.00

• Final Rule would also impact permanent labor certification applications being processed and certifications issued through ETA's Backlog Processing
  Centers, the Department also included in its analysis 176,496
  backlogged applications in process as of September 7, 2006

• The Department estimated that 70 percent of applications are ``clean'' and do not raise any audit flags. ``Clean'' applications require 0.25 hours of DOL staff time. We assumed that the remaining applications raise audit flags and must be reviewed manually, requiring four (4) hours of DOL staff time. We estimated that the median hourly wage for DOL reviewers is $30.06

• DHS and DOS will experience small decreases in revenue from application fees. Since employers must conduct a labor market test after a certification expires and since some of the labor market tests will favor U.S. workers, there will be a slight decrease in the number of Forms I-140 and I-485 that would have been submitted to DHS and immigrant visa applications that would have been submitted to DOS. Because these forms have application fees, DHS and DOS will experience a small decrease in revenue.

Source: http://a257.g.akamaitech.net/7/257/2422/01jan20071800/edocket.access.gpo.gov/2007/E7-9250.htm
(www.immigration-law.com)

 

[Jackolantern]

• 
  Analysis also assumed that 10 percent of all employer applications will
  request substitution of the alien

I bet the majority that 10% has a priority date in 2002 or before. There isn't much incentive to do substitution on a labor with a later date like 2004 or 2005.

So while substitution might represent just 10% of all labors, it probably represents 30% or even 50% of the really old labors.