The New PERM Rule and Why Employers Should Not Wait to Prepare
Current as of August 18, 2026.
The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) is preparing significant changes to the PERM labor certification program. But employers should understand an important distinction: DOL has not yet published the proposed PERM modernization rule.
What DOL has published is a regulatory agenda describing the agency’s plans. The agenda indicates that DOL intends to reconsider recruitment strandards, protections for U.S. workers affected by layoffs, nondiscriminatory recruitment and hiring practices, the use of modern recruiting technology, and employer record-retention requirements.
Although the details remain unknown, the agenda provides enough information for employers to begin reviewing their immigration practices. For companies sponsoring foriegn national employees for permanent residence, waiting for the proposed rule could mean losing valuable planning time.
What Has DOL Announced About PERM?
DOL’s Employment and Training Administration placed a planned rulemaking titled “Modernizing the Labor Market Test and Improving Protections for U.S. Workers in the PERM Immigrant Visa Program” (RIN 1205-AC29) on the Spring 2026 Unified Agenda, released July 3, 2026.
According to the agenda, DOL is considering changes to a system whose regulations have not been comprehensively modified since the 2004 rulemaking that took effect in March 2005. Recruiting has changed substantially during that period. Employers now rely heavily on digital job boards, professional networking platforms, applicant-tracking systems, remote hiring tools, and other technologies. These tactics were far less central when the current PERM framework was developed.
The initiative remains at the proposed-rule stage. The regulatory agenda listed July 2026 as the anticipated date for a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, but that target has passed without publication of the proposal. Regulatory-agenda dates are estimates – not binding deadlines, effective dates, or final rules.
Employers therefore do not yet know exactly what the proposed requirements will say. DOL has, however, provided important clues about the areas the agency intends to address.
What PERM Changes Has DOL Signaled?
Recruitment standards
DOL says it intends to improve the minimum standards used to recruit qualified U.S. workers. The agency’s agenda specifically cites changes in technology and recruiting practices as part of the rationale for modernizing the labor-market test.
The current PERM system was designed for an employment market that looked very different from today’s. Digital job boards, professional networking platforms, applicant-tracking systems, remote hiring, and automated recruiting tools have changed how employers identify and evaluate candidates.
What the eventual recruitment requirements will look like remains unknown. Employers should not assume that any particular platform, method, or technology will be required until DOL publishes the proposed text.
Layoffs
DOL has also indicated that it intends to strengthen protections for U.S. workers affected by layoffs. This is one of the most consequential signals in the modernization agenda.
Current PERM regulations already impose a notify-and-consider obligation under 20 C.F.R. § 656.17(k)(1) where the employer has laid off workers in the area of intended employment within the six months preceding filing, in the occupation for which certification is sought or in a related occupation. The employer must document that it notified and considered all potentially qualified laid-off U.S. workers of the job opportunity and must record the results of that notification and consideration. A layoff for this purpose is any involuntary separation of one or more employees without cause or prejudice, and a related occupation is any occupation that requires workers to perform a majority of the essential duties of the occupation for which certification is sought. The modernization agenda suggests that DOL may revisit or strengthen those protections.
Reductions in force, immigration sponsorship, and recruiting are often managed by different internal teams. If DOL changes how layoffs affect the PERM process, coordination among those functions may become even more important. Employers with recent or planned layoffs should ensure that immigration counsel has timely visibility into workforce changes involving occupations and areas connected to sponsored positions.
Nondiscriminatory recruitment and hiring
The planned rulemaking is also intended to enhance compliance with nondiscriminatory recruitment and hiring requirements.
PERM recruitment should not operate in a vacuum. Human resources, talent acquisition, legal, and immigration teams should understand how candidates are evaluated, why applicants are rejected, and whether the company can later reconstruct those decisions using contemporaneous records.
Record retention
Employer record retention is another area DOL has identified for possible change. Documentation is therefore an issue employers can review before any new regulation takes effect.
Recruitment records, applicant information, rejection reasons, job requirements, advertisements, and supporting materials should be organized consistently and preserved in accordance with current requirements. The eventual proposal could change or expand those obligations, but the details will not be known until DOL publishes the regulatory text.
What PERM Changes Remain Unknown?
The regulatory agenda describes the direction of the rulemaking—not the finished rule. Until DOL publishes the proposal, major questions remain unanswered, including:
- whether employers will face new recruitment methods or advertising requirements;
- how layoffs will affect individual PERM cases;
- whether documentation and retention requirements will expand;
- whether DOL will create new compliance or audit procedures;
- how the proposal will address pending or recently initiated cases;
- whether transition or grandfathering provisions will apply; and
- when any final requirements would become effective.
Employers should prepare without overreacting. They should not redesign their PERM programs around requirements that have not yet been proposed.
What Should Employers Review Now That PERM Is Changing?
Employers do not need to overhaul their PERM programs based on a rule that has not been published. They can, however, review the underlying processes that DOL has signaled may be affected.
Recruiting practices
Compare PERM recruitment with the company’s ordinary recruiting process. Understand where positions are normally advertised, how applications are received, who reviews candidates, and how rejection decisions are documented.
If ordinary recruiting relies heavily on modern digital channels while PERM recruitment follows a substantially different process, employers should understand and document those differences.
Sponsored employees and future candidates
Create an inventory of employees who are currently in, approaching, or likely to require the PERM process. Identify business-critical employees, relevant immigration expiration dates, and cases in which delay could create workforce-continuity concerns. Employers may also need to consider whether to begin employment-based green card planning earlier for employees are are integral.
Recent and planned layoffs
Ensure that immigration counsel receives timely information about reductions in force that have occurred or may occur in areas connected to PERM-sponsored positions. Because DOL has specifically identified protections for workers affected by layoffs as an objective of the planned rule, this area deserves particular attention.
Documentation practices
Determine whether the company can clearly reconstruct recruitment activity and applicant decisions. Who applied? Who evaluated the applicant? Why was the applicant rejected? Where is the supporting documentation? Were the reasons lawful, job-related, and recorded at the time of the decision?
Reliable records are particularly important when human resources, recruiting, business leaders, legal, and immigration teams all participate in the process.
Job descriptions
PERM cases depend heavily on the offered position and its minimum requirements. Employers should confirm that job descriptions accurately reflect the position’s actual duties and qualifications rather than relying on descriptions created years earlier or modified only for immigration purposes.
Compensation planning
PERM also intersects with prevailing wage requirements. Separately from the PERM modernization initiative, DOL published a proposed rule in March 2026 that would revise the prevailing-wage methodology used for PERM and the H-1B, H-1B1, and E-3 programs. That proposal, published in the Federal Register on March 27, 2026, would raise the four wage tiers from the current 17th-to-67th percentile band of Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics data to a 34th-to-88th percentile band. The comment period closed on May 26, 2026.
Employers should therefore consider recruitment strategy and compensation planning together when evaluating future sponsorship. The March 2026 proposal is not yet a final rule, and employers should continue to follow current requirements unless and until a final rule takes effect. As proposed, the revised wage levels would apply to prevailing wage determination requests pending as of the effective date and to new requests and labor condition applications filed on or after that date. They would not apply retroactively to previously issued prevailing wage determinations, approved labor certifications, or certified labor condition applications.
Longer-term workforce planning
Permanent-residence sponsorship should not begin only when an employee is approaching the end of another immigration status. Existing processing times and potential regulatory changes make earlier planning increasingly important.
Employers should identify employees who may eventually require permanent sponsorship and incorporate immigration timelines into retention, succession, and workforce planning. For employees approaching immigration-status or workforce-planning deadlines, additional months can matter. Employers should therefore consider the anticipated rulemaking as part of a broader workforce-continuity discussion rather than waiting until regulatory changes become effective.
PERM Is Becoming a Broader Employer-Planning Issue
The key takeaway is not that employers should predict what DOL will do. They should not.
Instead, companies should recognize what the regulatory agenda already tells us: DOL is examining whether a PERM framework developed more than two decades ago adequately reflects today’s labor market, recruiting technology, and employer practices.
The agenda points directly to recruitment standards, layoffs, nondiscrimination, technology, and record retention as areas of concern. This makes now an appropriate time for human resources, talent acquisition, legal, compensation, global mobility, business leadership, and immigration counsel to review how their processes connect.
Employers that understand their sponsored population, recruiting practices, layoff history, documentation, compensation strategy, and immigration timelines will be better positioned to respond when DOL publishes the actual proposal.
The new PERM rule has not arrived. Employer preparation does not have to wait for it.
Frequently Asked Questions About PERM Changes
No. DOL has announced its intention to modernize the PERM program through the federal regulatory agenda, but it has not yet published he proposed modernization rule. The detailed requirements remain unknown.
Employers should not assume requirements that DOL has not published. They can, however, review current recruiting practices, documentation, layoffs, sponsored populations, job descriptions, compensation planning, and immigration timelines so they are prepared to assess the proposal when it appears.
DOL’s FLAG posting of August 7, 2026 reported an average of 372 calendar days for analyst review, and DOL was then conducting analyst review of applications filed in September 2025. Audited cases sit in a separate queue; as of the same posting, DOL was reviewing audited applications filed in December 2025. Actual case processing times vary, analyst review is only one stage of the broader process, and DOL updates these figures monthly.
Depending on the organization, human resources, talent acquisition, business leadership, legal, compensation, global mobility, and immigration counsel may all hold information relevant to PERM strategy and compliance. Better coordination among those functions can help identify workforce and compliance risks earlier.
