I agree with others that industry lobbyists, unhappy with some research that uses H-1B records, may be behind the deletion of records. For example, last June I posted a subset of the Labor Condition Applications (LCAs) online at http://econdataus.com/lcainfo.... . The first large table there shows some of the most questionable data in applications from 2001 to 2013. The green values are values from applications that were certified that appear to be incorrect. As you can see, this data occurred from 2006 through 2008 and included records with company names like "Large Company" and addresses like "address123". But as stated at http://www.foreignlaborcert.do... , "The OFLC will no longer respond to inquiries to confirm priority dates, search for records in response to FOIA requests, or provide information for requests for duplicate certifications for permanent labor certification applications with a final determination issued in 2008 or earlier, in keeping with the OFLC records schedule". Hence, the source record for these years are no longer available, even via FOIA requests. Coincidence?
In any case, it seems that most of the processing of LCAs is automated and that some of the applicants take advantage of this. As you can see from the link above, all requests for over 1000 positions were denied but there were many requests for just under 1000 positions that were certified. That suggests that there is a known cutoff at 1000. Then, there were a number of certified applications that did not appear to contain enough information to determine the workplace location, a critical piece of information for evaluating the requests. Then, I noticed that nearly every application that proposed to pay a salary significantly below the prevailing wage was denied. However, many that proposed to pay a salary many multiples the prevailing wage, suggesting bad salary data, were certified. For example, a request to pay a product consultant $11.4 million a year and a staff dentist $15.5 million a year were certified! That's despite the fact that they listed the prevailing wages as $84,344 and $136,864, respectively. It appears that someone is just applying a set of filters to the data and "rubber-stamping" everything else.
Look at http://econdataus.com/lcainfo.... and you'll see evidence that the certified Labor Condition Applications (LCAs) are rife with errors. The first large table there shows some of the most questionable data in applications from 2001 to 2013. The green values are values from applications that were certified that appear to be incorrect. As you can see, this data occurred from 2006 through 2008 and included records with company names like "Large Company" and addresses like "address123". But as stated at http://www.foreignlaborcert.do... , "The OFLC will no longer respond to inquiries to confirm priority dates, search for records in response to FOIA requests, or provide information for requests for duplicate certifications for permanent labor certification applications with a final determination issued in 2008 or earlier, in keeping with the OFLC records schedule". Hence, the source record for these years are no longer available, even via FOIA requests. Coincidence?
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I agree with others that industry lobbyists, unhappy with some research that uses H-1B records, may be behind the deletion of records. For example, last June I posted a subset of the Labor Condition Applications (LCAs) online at http://econdataus.com/lcainfo.... . The first large table there shows some of the most questionable data in applications from 2001 to 2013. The green values are values from applications that were certified that appear to be incorrect. As you can see, this data occurred from 2006 through 2008 and included records with company names like "Large Company" and addresses like "address123". But as stated at http://www.foreignlaborcert.do... , "The OFLC will no longer respond to inquiries to confirm priority dates, search for records in response to FOIA requests, or provide information for requests for duplicate certifications for permanent labor certification applications with a final determination issued in 2008 or earlier, in keeping with the OFLC records schedule". Hence, the source record for these years are no longer available, even via FOIA requests. Coincidence?
In any case, it seems that most of the processing of LCAs is automated and that some of the applicants take advantage of this. As you can see from the link above, all requests for over 1000 positions were denied but there were many requests for just under 1000 positions that were certified. That suggests that there is a known cutoff at 1000. Then, there were a number of certified applications that did not appear to contain enough information to determine the workplace location, a critical piece of information for evaluating the requests. Then, I noticed that nearly every application that proposed to pay a salary significantly below the prevailing wage was denied. However, many that proposed to pay a salary many multiples the prevailing wage, suggesting bad salary data, were certified. For example, a request to pay a product consultant $11.4 million a year and a staff dentist $15.5 million a year were certified! That's despite the fact that they listed the prevailing wages as $84,344 and $136,864, respectively. It appears that someone is just applying a set of filters to the data and "rubber-stamping" everything else.
You can see more on this at http://www.reddit.com/r/news/c... .