3/4/2010

DOL has started accepting online ETA Form 9141 Prevailing Wage Determination Request Form on iCERT portal for H1B application an PERM labor certification. DOL has also released this Guide to give information to the new online filing procedure and requirement. Employers should review this Guide very carefully in order to file ETA 9041. 

The labor certification (LC) is the starting point in the permanent residence (green card) process for many. The position offered in the LC must have a rate of pay at or above the prevailing wage rate. The employer must obtain a prevailing wage determination (PWD) as part of the LC process. As of January 1, 2010, requests for PWDs must to be made through the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) national office. 

As of January 21, 2010, the requests can be filed through the online system known as iCERT. At the time of this writing, there appear to be delays in the issuance of PWDs through the DOL national office. This, in turn, is creating unusually long delays in the filing of LC / PERM cases. 

Office of Foreign Labor Certification initiated the centralized prevailing wage determination process through iCERT portal system effective. OFLC alerted the people that the request may be filed 60 days ahead of time. Accordingly employers should be alerted for the anticipated delays in obtaining PWD in planning on initiating foreign labor certification applications. For the iCert prevailing wage determination request, people may go to iCert Portal System. However, under the DOL’s Quick Start Guide, employers should first register themselves in iCERT Portal System.

DOL posted on 01/22/2010, advising end users to contact oflc.port@gol.gov in case that the users experience any difficulty accessing any portion of its iCERT portal application. As we posted earlier, the DOL reconfigured iCERT Portal System and started accepting online the prevailing wage determination application using iCERT portal system.