Labor Certification Processing Times
As of July 13, 2004

How to Understand Processing Times

Most labor certification cases are first filed with the State Employment Services Agency (SESA) in the state where the job is located.  Every US state has a SESA.  In California, the SESA is also known as the Employment Development Department (EDD), and in Texas the SESA is called the Texas Workforce Commission (TWC).  The SESA conducts a preliminary evaluation and processing of the case.  When the SESA has completed processing, it "transmits" the case to the Regional Office of the Department of Labor that has jurisdiction over the place the job is located.  At this stage in the process, the applicant company will receive a "transmittal letter" notifying them that the case was forwarded to DOL.

Because both RIR and regular permanent labor certification follows this two-step process, the length of time it will likely take to process a certain labor certification can be estimated by finding the amount of time the SESA will take to process (the dates under State Processing Times) and then  adding it to the amount of time that DOL will take to process (the dates under Regional Processing Times).