The Department of Labor (DOL) appears to be getting tough on
employers who filed PERM applications before the start of the
COVID-19 pandemic and the nationwide unemployment it has brought.
Based on recent reports from employer petitioners for PERM labor
certification (the process under which a U.S. employer must first
conduct a test of the U.S. labor market as part of the green card
process for a foreign national worker), the DOL has started asking
for explanations of the business necessity regarding the
position's education, training, experience and skill
requirements in its PERM audit letters.
Under longstanding PERM process regulations, an employer may
only require education, training, experience, and skills that are
“normal” to the job. To make this determination, DOL
relies on the OES (Occupational Employment Statistics) (https://www.bls.gov/oes/) and O*NET Online (https://www.onetonline.org/) databases. If the
requirements are not "normal," the employer must
