New H-1B Regulations Become Effective January 19, 2001

The U.S. Department of Labor published the long awaited regulations implementing changes in the H-1B Labor Condition Application program contained in the American Competitiveness and Workforce Improvement Act of 1998 (“ACWIA”) and otherwise incorporating regulations first published in 1995 and reissued for notice and comment based on the injunction entered in National Association of Manufacturers v. Department of Labor. effective January 19, 2000, one day before the Bush Administration takes office, H-1B dependent employers and employers who have found to be willful violators in the five year period leading up to that date will find themselves subject to severe restrictions on their methods of hiring and recruiting workers for H-1B positions in the United States. The Department of Labor has relieved non-dependent employers of the burdens of calculating the actual percentage of H-1B workers in their workforces, but not so dependent employers. Once classified as “dependent”, an employer is subject to the recruitment and non-displacement rules previously described in the 1999 Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, unless the employer satisfies one of two exemption requirements - i.e., the H-1B worker is paid compensation of $60,000 per year or more, or possesses the equivalent of a U.S. master’s degree in a specialty field which is required for the job in question. Please read more detailed summaries of the new regulations included in our news library for more details on benching, movement of H-1B workers and posting requirements.