An employment based green card San Antonio workers pursue usually begins at the Department of Labor, not at an immigration agency. That surprises people. But the gate is statutory: 8 U.S.C. Section 1182(a)(5)(A) makes a foreign worker inadmissible unless the Secretary of Labor certifies two findings first.
Those findings are narrow. First, no sufficient workers are able, willing, qualified, and available at the place of the job. Second, employing the foreign worker will not adversely affect the wages and working conditions of similarly employed United States workers. Everything called PERM exists to produce that certification.
The Prevailing Wage Comes First
Before recruiting anyone, the employer must request a prevailing wage determination from the National Prevailing Wage Center. Regulation Section 656.40 governs it. Absent a collective bargaining agreement, the wage is the arithmetic mean for similarly employed workers in the area. That mean comes from the Occupational Employment Statistics survey.
That determination carries a shelf life. It stays valid no less than 90 days and no more than one year. An employer who disagrees has 30 days to request review. The reviewing director then looks only at the original basis for the determination.
A March 2026 proposed rule would change how those wage levels are computed. It remains a proposal. Nothing in it is law yet.
What Recruitment an Employment Based Green Card San Antonio Employer Must Run
Section 656.17(e) sets the recruitment. Two steps are mandatory for professional occupations. One is a job order with the state workforce agency for 30 days. The other is advertising on two different Sundays, in a newspaper of general circulation serving the area.
Timing is unforgiving. Those mandatory steps must occur at least 30 days, but no more than 180 days, before filing. Miss either end and the recruitment does not count.
Professional positions require three more steps chosen from ten options. Job fairs qualify, as do the employer’s own website and an outside job site. So do on-campus recruiting, trade organizations, and private employment firms. An employee referral program with incentives counts, and so do campus placement offices, local and ethnic newspapers, and broadcast advertising. Only one of the three may consist solely of activity within 30 days of filing. None may predate filing by more than 180 days.
Separately, Section 656.10(d) requires a notice of filing. It must stay posted at least 10 consecutive business days, where employees can readily read it. The employer must also run the notice in any in-house media it normally uses for similar openings.
What the Advertisements Can and Cannot Say
Section 656.17(f) constrains the content. Ads must name the employer and direct applicants to it. They must describe the vacancy specifically enough to inform United States workers. They must also identify the geographic area. Just as importantly, ads may not state a wage below the prevailing wage. Nor may they list requirements exceeding those on the application, or offer terms less favorable than the foreign worker received.
Then comes the recruitment report. Under Section 656.17(g), the employer signs a report describing the steps taken and the results. It must give the number of hires, plus the lawful job-related reason for rejecting any United States worker.
One rejection reason is explicitly unlawful. An employer may not reject a United States worker for lacking trainable skills. If a reasonable period of on-the-job training would supply them, that rejection is unlawful.
Filing, Audits, and Appeals
The application itself is ETA Form 9089. Employers file it through the Department’s FLAG system, after registering with Login.gov. Employers may still mail applications instead. Either way, Section 656.17(a)(1) is blunt about form: incomplete applications will be denied.
Applications get certified, denied, or selected for audit. An audit letter sets a 30-day deadline for documentation. Missing it does more than forfeit the audit. It counts as a refusal to exhaust administrative remedies. That, in turn, removes the right to review at the Board of Alien Labor Certification Appeals.
Where review is available, a request must reach the certifying officer within 30 days. It must also identify the grounds. Supervised recruitment is a separate track, ordered at the officer’s discretion. There the advertisement runs three consecutive days including a Sunday, and resumes go to the officer rather than the employer.
Why an Employment Based Green Card San Antonio Priority Date Matters More Than the Approval
A certification is not a visa. Section 656.30(b)(1) gives it 180 calendar days: the employer must file a Form I-140 petition within that window or the certification expires.
What survives is the priority date. Under 8 C.F.R. Section 204.5(d), the priority date for a case requiring labor certification is the date the Department of Labor accepted the application for processing. Section 204.5(e)(1) lets that date carry to a later petition in the first, second, or third preference. A job change therefore does not always restart the wait.
Certifications are narrow in scope. One is valid only for the particular job opportunity, the named worker, and the area of intended employment.
The Categories Behind an Employment Based Green Card San Antonio Filing
Section 1153(b) splits employment immigration five ways. The first, second, and third preferences each receive up to 28.6 percent of the annual worldwide level. Each also takes unused numbers falling down from above. The fourth and fifth each receive 7.1 percent. Within the third preference, no more than 10,000 visas a year may go to unskilled “other workers.”
Per-country limits sit on top. Section 1152(a)(2) caps any single country at 7 percent of the total. That cap is why waits diverge so sharply by country of birth.
The September 2026 Visa Bulletin shows the spread. For all chargeability areas, the first and second preferences were current. The third preference stood at September 1, 2024. For India, the first preference read October 15, 2022. The third read January 1, 2014. India’s second preference had no numbers left for that fiscal year. Those figures move monthly, so check the current bulletin rather than any republished table.
How Long the Labor Department Step Actually Takes
The Department publishes queue positions rather than promises. Data current through August 31, 2026 put analyst review on November 2025 receipts. Audit review sat on December 2025 receipts. Prevailing wage determinations sat on May 2026 receipts. Average analyst review time in August 2026 ran 336 calendar days.
Read that 336 carefully. It measures one stage. It excludes the prevailing wage step ahead of it and any audit behind it. So it is not the length of a PERM case. Our guide to what employers must prove in PERM covers the same federal process from an Arizona vantage point.
The Bottom Line
PERM is a test of recruitment records, not of the worker’s qualifications. Cases fail on a posting that ran nine business days. Or on an advertisement listing a requirement the form did not. Or on a rejected applicant whose file never explained why. The worker usually never appears in the part of the process that decides it. That is the strange shape of this route. The person waiting holds almost no control over the step that takes longest and fails most often.
Frequently asked questions
180 calendar days. The employer must file a Form I-140 petition within that window under Section 656.30(b)(1), or the certification expires.
The date the Department of Labor accepted the labor certification application for processing. That date can be retained on a later first, second, or third preference petition.
For professional occupations, a 30-day state job order and advertisements on two different Sundays, plus three additional steps from a list of ten. The mandatory steps must fall between 30 and 180 days before filing.
Not where the applicant could acquire the skill during a reasonable period of on-the-job training. Section 656.17(g)(2) states that this is not a lawful job-related reason for rejection.
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Get MatchedKeep reading: PERM Labor Certification Process: What Employers Must Prove · Marriage Based Green Card Process: Adjustment vs Consular
This article is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Labor certification rules, processing queues, and Visa Bulletin dates change frequently, and the figures here reflect published government sources as of September 2026. Employers and workers should consult a licensed immigration attorney before relying on any timeline.
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