Due to the current state of the economy, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) has recently advised that employers in some industries should expect to start receiving more supervised recruitment notices on PERM applications. A PERM application is an application that is filed by an employer on behalf of a foreign national after an extensive recruitment process has determined that there are no qualified and available U.S. workers to fill a particular position. The PERM application is, in many cases, the first step on the road to U.S. permanent residence for a foreign national.

The DOL has not singled out any specific jobs or locations that are likely to be subjected to supervised recruitment other than Financial Analysts in New York City. However, employers should anticipate that DOL will carefully review pending PERM applications against actual data regarding layoffs in the area in order to determine whether there appear to have been so many layoffs in the field or geographic area that supervised recruitment should be required before a PERM application may be approved.