Businesses in the United States looking to hire skilled and experienced professionals from abroad must complete a lengthy process. Paperwork, fees and background checks are all important components of the employment visa acquisition process.
Before any of that begins, the company typically needs to obtain a labor certification. They must submit information about the job market and the company’s vacancies for analysis by federal authorities. Permanent labor certifications make employers eligible for international hiring, allowing them to sponsor qualified professionals for work visas.
Why is a pre-recruitment labor certification typically necessary?
The intent is to protect domestic workers
Professionals in other countries may have lower standards of living and overall lower wages when compared with those working in the United States. Domestic employers could drastically undercut the domestic labor market by hiring professionals from abroad for substantially less than they might need to pay to hire similar talent in the United States.
Such practices could result in highly educated, experienced and skilled domestic professionals struggling to find work or dealing with an artificial reduction in average wages due to companies hiring internationally instead of hiring from the existing pool of domestic talent. Labor certifications validate that there is more demand for certain employment rules than there are workers available to fill those vacancies.
Particularly when sponsoring workers for H-1B visas, companies may also have an incentive to offer wages that are competitive based on domestic salaries. The weighted lottery system favors positions where workers earn higher wages.
Domestic employers seeking talent abroad and foreign professionals hoping to acquire work visas may need support during the visa application and labor certification process. Working with an experienced employment immigration attorney can make it easier to manage the challenges of hiring foreign talent.