Voglio sapere a riguardo di…

26174

Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 91 / Thursday, May 13, 2021 / Rules and Regulations
inconsistency or otherwise interferes with an action taken or planned by another agency; 3 materially alters the budgetary impacts of entitlement grants, user fees, or loan programs, or the rights and obligations of recipients thereof; or 4 raises novel legal or policy issues arising out of legal mandates, the Presidents priorities, or the principles set forth in the E.O. Id. Pursuant to E.O.
12866, OIRA has determined that this is an economically significant regulatory action. Pursuant to the Congressional Review Act 5 U.S.C. 801 et seq., OIRA
has designated that this rule is a major rule, as defined by 5 U.S.C. 8042.
E.O. 13563 directs agencies to propose or adopt a regulation only upon a reasoned determination that its benefits justify its costs; the regulation is tailored to impose the least burden on society, consistent with achieving the regulatory objectives; and in choosing among alternative regulatory approaches, the agency has selected those approaches that maximize net benefits. E.O. 13563
recognizes that some benefits are difficult to quantify and provides that, where appropriate and permitted by law, agencies may consider and qualitatively discuss values that are difficult or impossible to quantify, including equity, human dignity, fairness, and distributive impacts.
The 2021 Final Rule 1 updated the computation of wage levels under the Departments four-tiered wage structure based on the OES wage survey administered by BLS. The 2021 Final Rule also included a transition period under which the revised Level IIV
wages were adjusted over time to final wage levels. To calculate the 2021 Final Rules transfer payments from employers to employees, the Department simulated wage impacts for historical certification data based on the 2021 Final Rules Level IIV wage percentiles for each transition group 85, 90, 95, and 100 percent of the final Level IIV wage levels. The Department then used the simulated wage impacts for each transition group, to construct a 10-year series of annual total wage impacts transfers from employers to employees. More details on the wage computations and methodology used to calculate transfer payments are available in the Departments 2021 Final Rule.
The 2021 Final Rule transition period allowed foreign workers and their employers time to adapt to the new wage rates. For most job opportunities,
the 2021 Final Rule transition followed two steps with a delayed implementation period, concluding on July 1, 2022. For these jobs, current wage levels would be in effect from January 1, 2021 through June 30, 2021.
From July 1, 2021 through June 30, 2022
the prevailing wage would be 90 percent of the final wage level. From July 1, 2022 and onward the prevailing wage would be the final wage level. Job opportunities in the four-step transition group had a delayed implementation period, with a transition to final wage levels concluding on July 1, 2024. For these jobs the baseline wage levels would be in effect from January 1, 2021
through June 30, 2021. From July 1, 2021 through June 30, 2022 the prevailing wage would be 85 percent of the final wage levels; from July 1, 2022
through June 30, 2023 the prevailing wage would be 90 percent of the final wage levels; from July 1, 2023 through June 30 2024 the prevailing wage would be 95 percent of the final wage levels;
and from July 1, 2024 onwards the prevailing wage would be the final wage levels.
The Department is delaying the effective date of May 14, 2021, and the transition date of July 1, 2021, under which adjustments to the new wage levels would begin, for a period of eighteen months, or until November 14, 2022 and January 1, 2023, respectively.
In addition, the Department is instituting corresponding one-year delays for each of the remaining transition dates, which are revised to January 1, 2024, January 1, 2025, and January 1, 2026, respectively. The Department is delaying the implementation of the 2021 Final Rule for three primary reasons: 1 To allow the Department to have sufficient time to engage in its comprehensive review of the 2021 Final Rule; 2 to prevent confusion and uncertainty among the regulated community over the operative wage rates while the Department conducts its review; and 3 because BLS and OFLC will not have adequate time to compute and validate prevailing wage data covering all occupations and geographic areas, complete and thoroughly test modifications to the OFLC FLAG system, train staff, and conduct sufficient public outreach to ensure an effective and orderly implementation should the 2021 Final Rule go into effect.

Under the Final Rule, current wage levels would be in effect through December 31, 2022, and wage impacts estimated in the 2021 Final Rule will not begin until January 1, 2023. For the two-step transition, the current wage levels will be in effect through December 31, 2022, and from January 1, 2023 through December 31, 2023 the prevailing wage will be 90 percent of the final wage level. From January 1, 2024 and onward the prevailing wage will be the final wage level. For the four-step transition the current wage levels will be in effect through December 31, 2022. From January 1, 2023 through December 31, 2023, the prevailing wage will be 85 percent of the final wage levels; from January 1, 2024 through December 21, 2024, the prevailing wage will be 90 percent of the final wage levels; from January 1, 2025 through December 21, 2025, the prevailing wage will be 95 percent of the final wage levels; and from January 1, 2026 onwards the prevailing wage will be the final wage levels.
The Final Rules delay in effective date will result in the reduction of transfer payments in the form of higher wages from employers to H1B
employees. Additionally, the Final Rule would delay the potential for deadweight losses to occur in the event that requiring employers to pay a wage above what H1B workers are willing to accept results in H1B caps not being met. The Department has observed that the annual H1B cap was reached within the first five business days each year from FY 2014 through FY 2020.
While the Department expects that the increase in wages may incentivize some employers to substitute domestic workers for H1B employees, provided that domestic workers are available for the jobs, it is likely that the same number of H1B visas will be allotted within the annual caps in the future. To calculate the reduction of transfer payments the Department considered the transfer payments of the 2021 Final Rule as the baseline and shifted them according to the Final Rules new transition effective dates. To shift transfer payments the Department used the average annual wage impacts from Exhibit 7 in the 2021 Final Rules E.O.
12866 section and applied them to the Final Rules transition period. Exhibit 1, below, presents the revised wage transition schedule under the two groups.

1 The 2021 Final Rule was published in the Federal Register on January 14, 2021. 86 FR 3608, 36083611.

VerDate Sep<11>2014

16:06 May 12, 2021

Jkt 253001

PO 00000

Frm 00026

Fmt 4700

Sfmt 4700

E:FRFM13MYR1.SGM

13MYR1