The Department of Labor is accepting public input on whether to revise its Schedule A list of job classifications through May 13.

Key Points:

• President Biden issued an Executive Order last year with several provisions directing federal agencies to streamline immigration procedures and help keep the U.S. competitive in AI and other emerging technological fields.
• One of the provisions directed the DOL to consider additions to the Schedule A list of occupations by soliciting public input to identify occupations in AI, STEM and other sectors with an insufficient number of ready, willing, able and qualified U.S. workers.
• The May 13 deadline is an extension from the original deadline date of Feb. 20.
• Comments can be submitted via the Regulations.gov site here.

BAL Analysis: Green cards in the EB-2 and EB-3 classifications generally require permanent labor certification, or PERM; however, PERM is not required for occupations on the Schedule A list of shortage occupations. Schedule A has not been revised since 2004. The DOL’s move to ask for public input is a welcome development toward modernizing the list and the process for revising it. The request for information is a preliminary step in the rulemaking process, and several steps must be completed before the list can be updated. BAL will continue following this matter and will provide updates as information becomes available.