On May 13, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) announced an 18-month delay in the effective date of a rule devised during the last days of the Trump administration. The rule, titled “Strengthening Wage Protections for the Temporary and Permanent Employment of Certain Aliens in the United States," affects pay for foreign workers - employers will not have to quickly adjust to significantly higher wages for certain foreign employees. The new effective date is November 14, 2022. In an HR Daily Advisor article titled DOL’s Rule Delay Called Good News for Employers of Foreign Workers, Labor and Employment attorney Jonathan Eggert discusses how he expects the rule to affect employers.

Excerpt

“I think there is a high likelihood that the rule that will eventually go into place will look significantly different from the current version,” Eggert says. “While we might still see a new calculation method that results in a prevailing wage increase, we are unlikely to see something as drastic as proposed by the Trump administration.”

"Under the Trump administration’s rule, employers that sponsor employees for H-1B, H-1B1, E-3 visas, and many green cards would likely find themselves having to pay higher wages," Eggert says.

“If the increase is significant enough, it might deter employers from sponsoring foreign national employees altogether,” Eggert adds. “Employers would need to evaluate whether the foreign national is valuable enough to their organization to move forward with sponsorship at the higher prevailing wage level.”

https://hrdailyadvisor.blr.com/2021/05/18/dols-rule-delay-called-good-news-for-employers-of-foreign-workers/