Today, the U.S. Department of Labor announced an 18-month delay in the effective date of the final rule, "Strengthening Wage Protections for the Temporary and Permanent Employment of Certain Aliens in the United States."
Published in January 2021, the final rule affects employers seeking to employ foreign workers on a permanent through certain immigrant visas or on a temporary basis through H-1B, H-1B1 and E-3 non-immigrant visas. The final rule will now go into effect on Nov. 14, 2022.
Roy Beck, President of NumbersUSA, explains the impact of the administration's decision:
Once again, the Biden Administration is siding with corporations who seek cheap foreign labor instead of hiring American workers at a prevailing wage at a time of high unemployment and rising inflation. This inexplicable 18-month delay in requiring prevailing wages for foreign workers, following a 3-month delay announced in March, is only the latest in a string of actions this Administration is taking to reward the least responsible employers while allowing the importation of foreign labor to depress the wages of nurses, teachers, tech workers, and others.
The press release from the Department of Labor argues that the delay is required to provide the department with the time it needs to "consider the final rule's legal and policy issues thoroughly" and the "sufficient time to compute and validate prevailing wage data covering specific occupations and geographic areas".
Read the final rule finalizing the delay, now available online for public inspection. It was published in the Federal Register today.
For the complete DOL release, please click here.
