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12/18/2003 Entry: "Department of Labor Issues Revised Guidelines on Reduction in Recruitment (RIR) Requests"

On November 20, 2003, the Department of Labor (DOL) distributed a memo to all Certifying Officers containing new guidelines for Reduction in Recruitment (RIR) processing. The purpose of the memo was to address the DOL’s remand policy for RIR cases due the labor market conditions and the backlog of regular process cases at the state workforce agencies.

The guidelines were issued with an eye toward PERM. The updated policy for RIR cases should enable a smoother transition to the PERM system when it is finally implemented.

The adjudication of RIR cases had been somewhat unpredictable over the last few years. Various DOL offices had adopted a blanket remand policy for technology related RIR cases. The recently issued DOL memo establishes a standard policy for the certifying officers to use when determining whether an RIR case has met the burden of testing the US worker job market. Following is the text of the memo:

1. Initial Review Provision. All RIR applications must be reviewed based upon existing criteria for completeness of the application, demonstration of a pattern of recruitment, and compliance with applicable regulations such as absence of restrictive requirements, layoffs by the requesting employer that have not been adequately addressed, etc. Certifying Officers (CO), at their discretion based upon information available to them, may deny the employer RIR request at this stage of review.

Applications not meeting the current completeness/compliance requirements will be issued a Notice of Finding (NOF) as appropriate.

2. For the remaining applications which have met the completeness/compliance review, the following guidelines shall be applied:

i. Applications for positions requiring a Bachelor’s Degree and three (3) or more years of experience or a Master’s Degree (+) six (6) months of experience (assuming these requirements are appropriate) should be certified and not subject to the retest provisions noted below.

ii. Applications not meeting the above criteria will be reviewed to determine if the level of recruitment and the detail provided in the recruitment report satisfy the Certifying Officer such that further recruitment is unnecessary. All such applications should be certified.

If after reviewing the documentation the CO is not satisfied that the company has tested the job market, the DOL will give the following options:

1. Withdrawal of the application
2. Withdrawal of the RIR request with remanding to the SWA and placement in the SWA queue based on priority date
3. Conduct a one-day “retest” of the market.

If the one-day retest is selected, the employer will be allowed to amend the job requirements since many applications were originally submitted with degree requirements only. The “bare bones” approach had been the standard practice for many practitioners prior to the economic downturn. The DOL memo encourages employers to submit any resumes that are received in connection with the one-day retest.

In Conclusion, RIR applications can now be filed with more confidence. Also, employers may expect uniform processing procedures, regardless of which regional processing center is being utilized.

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