Update January 30, 2023
Just received a batch of prevailing wage determinations (PWD). It seems DOL is issuing determinations of wage requests filed in July 2022. We also got back PWDs of our earliest requests that have been pending since April 2022. No pending wage requests filed before July 2022.
Update January 10, 2023
We are receiving PWDs that were filed in June 2022. However, we have some filed in April that are still pending. We also know that many are waiting with even earlier filing dates, including some filed in Dec 2021.
Update December 6, 2022
Latest update from DOL about the long processing times for prevailing wage determinations. Some filed in Nov 2021 are still pending. WOW! They blame it on the new SOC codes, where SOC has two additional digits after the decimal. Our longest pending requests, however, don’t have the new codes but still facing delay and out of FIFO order.
Update December 5, 2022
Up until November 2022, the processing time for prevailing wage determination has been hovering around 6 to 7 months with FIFO intact.
However, as of Mid-November 2022, we are seeing for the first time DOL skipping over earlier-filed-requests and approving later-filed-request. FIFO for PWD is no longer a certainty.
For the majority of cases, it’s taking about 7 months.
Original Post January 24, 2022
Processing time of prevailing wage determinations has slowed to about 6 months. DOL does not post avg processing time but only the submission date of the oldest application in its pipeline. Looking at its latest data, the oldest application in its queue as of December 31, 2021 is April 2021.
Based on our records, requests for PWD have slowed down from 5 months to 6 months. We are currently receiving PWDs filed in July 2021. There have been reports that DOL is processing PWD requests out of order. However, DOL has confirmed that it continues to follow FIFO. We also have not noticed any out-of-order adjudications. The slowing down of PWD will impact PERM filing timelines as well as related expectations.