H-1B visa applications

What it is

Before an employer can petition the immigration service for a foreign worker in an H-1B job, it must file a labor condition application with the Department of Labor. The Department publishes every application it has decided, with the employer, job title, wage offered, prevailing wage, worksite and the number of workers asked for. This page ranks the employers that filed the most certified applications and lists the latest decisions. Applications for H-1B1 (Chile, Singapore) and E-3 (Australia) workers are in the same files.

Who files it

The employer files each application with the Department of Labor, Office of Foreign Labor Certification. The Department publishes the decided ones.

How current

The Department publishes the fiscal year to date about six weeks after each quarter ends (October to December is quarter one), so the newest decisions are about two months old. We check every week; most weeks nothing is new.

Terms

labor condition applicationA labor condition application (LCA) is the form an employer files with the Department of Labor before it petitions for an H-1B worker. The employer promises to pay at least the prevailing wage and to meet working-conditions rules. The Department certifies or denies it.not a hireAn application is not a hire, a petition or a visa. It is a step before a petition to the immigration service, which decides separately. The worker may never be hired, and one application can name many workers.decisionCertified: the Department certified the application. Certified, then withdrawn: it was certified and the employer withdrew it later. Denied: the Department denied it. Withdrawn: the employer withdrew it before a decision.wage offeredThe wage the employer offered, as filed, with its unit. The yearly figure restates it per year (hourly x 2,080, weekly x 52, every two weeks x 26, monthly x 12) from the low end of the offered range. It is not what the worker was paid.prevailing wageThe wage the Department treats as normal for the job and place. The employer must offer at least this much. It comes from the employer's own filing.company matchWe match the employer's name to a public company automatically, including a reviewed list of subsidiaries. A subsidiary can be missed and a similar name can be matched wrongly.

Worth knowing

An application is not a hire, a petition or a visa, and a certified application may never be used. One application can cover several workers, and staffing and consulting firms file many for work at other companies. A worksite or wage is as filed. Most employers are private companies, universities or staffing firms; we match a name to a public company automatically, so a subsidiary can be missed and a similar name matched wrongly.

All of this comes from the US Department of Labor, Office of Foreign Labor Certification, which publishes the decided applications. We are not affiliated with it.