Report (Employer’s Business Classification)

In 1997, the United States introduced a new industry classification system. This industry coding system was designed to enable government agencies to produce data that could be used for measuring productivity, unit labor costs, and the capital intensity of production; constructing input-output relationships; and estimating employment-output relationships, and other such statistics that require inputs and outputs be used together.

Your attorney will need to use this resource to establish the employer’s NAICS code, and this code will be entered on the official PERM application form.

Examples of Similar Job Advertised

As part of the Perm package, all the parties involved should use their best endeavors to find between 6-12 similar job postings to the applicants job on offer. The aim of this exercise should be to corroborate the prevailing wage, the nature and responsibilities of the job.

Great effort should be taken to find adverts where the duties required are well defined. Adverts consisting of one or two lines will probably not be sufficient in most cases.

If the employer has not already completed the required amount of advertising, reviewing the wording of these advertisements may prove useful to the employer and attorney when considering and designing the advertising campaign.

These adverts should be faxed to the attorney for his perusal and for your file.

Advertising Requirements By The Employer

As mentioned earlier on in this review, the employer is required to first advertise the vacancy in local papers and only if he can find no US citizens ready, willing and able to work, can he consider hiring an alien. The only modification that should be added here is that, in this context, the phrase U.S. citizens include current green card holders too.

Commentary On Recruitment Advertising

As can be seen, the advertising requirements are not that difficult to satisfy. An important requirement is that all applicants for the jobs advertised must be recorded. Where US citizens and green card holders are turned down, reasons must be recorded to demonstrate no bias to the alien. If no applicant responds to the ad then this too must be recorded.

Copies of all ads must be mailed to the attorney for filing. The ad must contain the entire page of the ad so that the date the advert was published can be verified. The employer’s ad itself can be quite small. Even a lineage ad would be sufficient.

Posting An Ad With The State Workforce Agency (SWA)

Each state has it’s own State Workforce Agency that will allow local employers to post job advertisements. For example, the SWA for Florida is called OSMIS – One Stop Management Information System. The attorney will most likely set this up for the employer, but the employer will be responsible for receiving and handling all subsequent enquiries.

To satisfy the SWA requirement, an employer is required to register the vacancy here for 30 days and record all responses. It is important to note that if any candidates do come forward that appear to have suitable qualifications, they should be interviewed as a matter of course. Even if they are not selected, the reason for them not getting the job over the alien candidate must be clearly stated.

Summary

The Permanent Employment Certification Program (PERM) is an excellent facility for employers and employees to get together in the shortest possible time. This office will do it’s best to make sure that happens.

The second half of this outline is primarily for practitioner’s but it makes interesting reading for employers and employees, since it will give them a behind-the-scenes look at some of the work this will office will be coordinating on the applicant’s behalf.

Glossary