EB2-3 Predictions (Rather Calculations) 2015-2020

[amulchandra]

I do not do manual calculations anymore Amul. So the honest answer is i don't know unless I login to whereismygc and run a scenario for EB3I.

But looking at the macro picture I am very comfortable in predicting that EB3I dates are going to move like never before. The movement we have seen is just scratching the surface!

Thanks a lot Q. Hope your words come true! I think we have to wait till June/July for this movement to materialize.

Regards
Amul

[suninphx]

suninphx,

Good question!

The honest answer is that I don't know. The information available isn't that good.

Possibly an analysis of the Employer/Job in PERM or the PWD data might shed some light on it, but I haven't done that.

I wouldn't be surprised if the EB3-M numbers have shifted towards EB3. There also has to be a danger that EB3-P numbers will ramp up now that the dates are effectively Current and the wait times are fairly short. That generally wouldn't show in the PERM figures, since the highest demand will be from Schedule A nurses and PT. With shorter wait times, the abandonment rate for EB3-P will probably drop.

I'm not sure whether that will effect this FY or not.

The USCIS Inventory data will become less useful for determining EB3-WW numbers. The I-140 needs to be approved for the I-485 to be included in the figures, so increasingly, cases won't show.

Trackitt data (I know you aren't a great fan) suggests EB3-ROW approvals have reached a PD of about Sept 2012 (with a couple of later outliers). That's only where the COD was in the April/May 2014 VB , before retrogression. The COD only moved past that again in November 2014. I-485 seem to be taking about 7 months to approve at this point. That's possibly why we are seeing a lull in EB3-ROW approvals currently.

I'm a little more optimistic than some others and there is still almost half the year to go. That said, I don't believe it will be a particularly good year for EB2-I.

Thanks for detailed reply Spec! helps to put things in perspective.

[bluelabel]

Looks like EB2I is not going to receive many spill overs this year. How will next FY for EB2 ROW? Because EB3 ROW is almost current, will demand in EB2 ROW go down drastically and help EB2I? I hope between Oct 2015 and Dec 2015, EB2I will move into 2010s for inventory build.

[Spectator]

The Annual Numerical Limits for Fiscal Year 2015 document has been updated today.

It now shows the estimated EB Annual Limit as 144,730 (in line with expectations).

EB1 ---- 41,394
EB2 ---- 41,393
EB3 ---- 41.393
EB4 ---- 10,275
EB5 ---- 10,275

Total - 144,730

The 7% limit within EB becomes 10,131 for all Countries other than China, where it is 9,131 because of the provisions in the Chinese Student Protection Act (700 less in EB5 and 300 less in EB3).

[jackbrown_890]

Someone on trackitt EB2I -PD dec09 reported RFE notice. Don't know how it is possible.S/he did not receive medical in 2014. Let's wait and see bulletine on Monday.

The Annual Numerical Limits for Fiscal Year 2015 document has been updated today.

It now shows the estimated EB Annual Limit as 144,730 (in line with expectations).

EB1 ---- 41,394
EB2 ---- 41,393
EB3 ---- 41.393
EB4 ---- 10,275
EB5 ---- 10,275

Total - 144,730

The 7% limit within EB becomes 10,131 for all Countries other than China, where it is 9,131 because of the provisions in the Chinese Student Protection Act (700 less in EB5 and 300 less in EB3).

[Spectator]

The May VB is out.

EB2-I - 15APR08
EB2-C - 01JUN12

EB5-C - 01MAY13

EB3-ROW/M - 01JAN15
EB3-P - 01JUL07
EB3-I - 15JAN04

D. OVERSUBSCRIPTION OF THE CHINA-mainland born
EMPLOYMENT FIFTH PREFERENCE CATEGORY

Heavy applicant demand has required the implementation of an Employment Fifth preference cut-off date to hold number use within the maximum level of numbers which may be made available for use by such applicants during FY-2015. No specific prediction regarding movement of this date is possible at present. Future visa availability will depend on a combination of demand for numbers being reported each month, and the extent to which otherwise unused numbers may become available. An increase in visa demand by applicants with relatively early priority dates COULD make necessary a retrogression of this cut-off date prior to the end of the fiscal year; retrogression is NOT being predicted but it cannot be ruled out. It is extremely likely that this category will remain subject to a cut-off date indefinitely.

E. PHILIPPINES VISA AVAILABILITY

Employment Third preference:

This cut-off date had also been advanced very rapidly in an effort to generate sufficient demand to fully utilize all available numbers. The current rate of increase in demand has required the retrogression of this cut-off date for the month of May, in an attempt to hold number use within the annual limit for this preference category.

[Spectator]

I would say that such severe retrogression of EB3-Philippines (7 years +) means they have pretty much reached the number of visas CO is prepared to allocate this FY.

That is mirrored by approvals in Trackitt (although it is such a low number as to be insignificant).

[qesehmk]

I would say that such severe retrogression of EB3-Philippines (6 years +) means they have pretty much reached the number of visas CO is prepared to allocate this FY.

That is mirrored by approvals in Trackitt (although it is such a low number as to be insignificant).

Spec ... this means EB3P NVC demand has finally caught up.

But I believe this shouldn't affect EB3I's prospects this year which look pretty good to me.

[Spectator]

Spec ... this means EB3P NVC demand has finally caught up.

But I believe this shouldn't affect EB3I's prospects this year which look pretty good to me.

Q,

I agree.

EB3-P use is limited by reaching the overall 7% limit within EB (since they use all 7% in FB) of around 10,131.

Given likely use in other EB Categories, that shouldn't be more than about 6.5k at most within EB3. Use by EB2-P will be the biggest determinator of the actual number.

[United]

Which month do you guys think there will be spill across for EB3I ?

[civilengineer]

I was too pessimistic by 2 months, I thought it will move 6 months but it moved 8 months. My prediction for May bulletin is April 1, 2008 ( 7 months progress)

My prediction for May was off by about 15 days. June bulletin guesstimate: November 1, 2008.
Also, I think we need a prediction for when they will release the bulletin. My guess is that it should be out by May 12, Tuesday.

[imdeng]

Hmm... VBs are following the established pattern. May is probably the last month they can continue with the holding pattern. They will have to break the pattern next month.

1. EB3ROW has no place to go except "Current" now. EB3I folks will need to be issued Medical/EVL RFEs pretty soon - time is running out. This pretending by USCIS that nothing is going on in EB3 and EB3I can just continue with 1-2 week movement each month is getting a little ridiculous.
2. EB3P catchup that we have been expecting for some time has finally happened. I personally thought that much of the EB3P, especially nursing, demand has been lost due to the delay. But does not seem like - a good part seems to have survived to fill up the quota for this FY.
3. EB2C moved 14 months. Seems a little excessive. Guess inventory building is in full swing here.
4. EB2I moved 7.5 months. Seems still a bit away from the time period where they will find significant demand. After 8 months last bulletin, I guess 7 months for next bulletin (15-NOV-08 for June), then 6.5 months after that (01-JUN-08 for July) - after that guess depends on spillover.

So well - nothing much in this VB. Hope next one is more note-worthy.

The May VB is out.

EB2-I - 15APR08
EB2-C - 01JUN12

EB5-C - 01MAY13

EB3-ROW/M - 01JAN15
EB3-P - 01JUL07
EB3-I - 15JAN04

[4WatItsWorth]

7 months for next bulletin (15-NOV-08 for June), then 6.5 months after that (01-JUN-08 for July)

I think that you mean 01-May-09, right? Isn't that (or close) where we were last year? That is terrible! Is it possible that the spillover could give eb2-I at least six months net movement to 01-Nov-2009 in August? Otherwise, it is just a pendulum. And any guesses what follows August, retrogression -- despite this year's steady movement? Sorry, for asking so many questions.

[Suva2001]

1. EB3ROW has no place to go except "Current" now. EB3I folks will need to be issued Medical/EVL RFEs pretty soon - time is running out. This pretending by USCIS that nothing is going on in EB3 and EB3I can just continue with 1-2 week movement each month is getting a little ridiculous.
.

Isn't same thing happened in 2013 for EB3-I? Date moved from Jan 2003 to Sep 22. It was more than 8 months movement. Did they issue EVL/RFEs 2-3 months earlier than the bulletin?

[krishn]

Isn't same thing happened in 2013 for EB3-I? Date moved from Jan 2003 to Sep 22. It was more than 8 months movement. Did they issue EVL/RFEs 2-3 months earlier than the bulletin?

yes eb3i jumped from 22jan03 to 22sept03 in sept2013 bulletin, i.e 8 months movement in sept'13 bulletin; and the mass rfe's were issued in june/july'13.

Apr i485 inventory will throw some light on future movement, while july i485 inventory will seal the year.

[imdeng]

I did mistype. 6.5 months would be 01-May-09 for July. We will still have Aug and Sep to catch any spillover. Upto 01-Nov-09 is a ready-set demand with RFEs filed already. Although many filed RFEs will start expiring July onwards.

I think that you mean 01-May-09, right? Isn't that (or close) where we were last year? That is terrible! Is it possible that the spillover could give eb2-I at least six months net movement to 01-Nov-2009 in August? Otherwise, it is just a pendulum. And any guesses what follows August, retrogression -- despite this year's steady movement? Sorry, for asking so many questions.

[4WatItsWorth]

I did mistype. 6.5 months would be 01-May-09 for July. We will still have Aug and Sep to catch any spillover. Upto 01-Nov-09 is a ready-set demand with RFEs filed already. Although many filed RFEs will start expiring July onwards.

Ok, thanks. But, let me re-phrase my question. If EB2-I can go to 01-May-09 on its own, with no spillover, how far do you think it can go with whatever spillover is expected so far? How likely is it that it could reach 01-Nov-2009 by September?

[imdeng]

First - it will not reach 01-May-09 on its own considering the porting volume and the cases before 01-May-09 that did not get approved last time around. I personally do think that it will reach at least 01-Nov-09 with whatever piddly spillover we receive this year. The density between May and Nov 2009 is really low so it is not going to take too much spillover for that jump.

Ok, thanks. But, let me re-phrase my question. If EB2-I can go to 01-May-09 on its own, with no spillover, how far do you think it can go with whatever spillover is expected so far? How likely is it that it could reach 01-Nov-2009 by September?

[redsox2009]

My best stab at a comparison of PERM Certifications between FY2014 and FY2015 for Q2 and H1 (Q1/Q2).

-------------- FY14 Q2 - FY15 Q2 - % of FY14
China ---------- 1,188 --- 1,645 ---- 138%
India ---------- 9,446 -- 12,611 ---- 134%
Mexico ----------- 321 ----- 386 ---- 120%
Philippines ------ 474 ----- 319 ----- 67%
ROW ------------ 5,679 --- 5,217 ----- 92%

ALL ----------- 17,108 -- 20,178 ---- 118%


-------------- FY14 H1 - FY15 H1 - % of FY14
China ---------- 1,829 --- 3,074 ---- 168%
India --------- 14,522 -- 21,820 ---- 150%
Mexico ----------- 602 ----- 681 ---- 113%
Philippines ------ 684 ----- 635 ----- 93%
ROW ------------ 8,535 -- 10,160 ---- 119%

ALL ----------- 26,172 -- 36,370 ---- 139%


This is a comparison of the preceding rolling yearly PERM Certification numbers for the preceding year and this year i.e. Q3 FY2013 to Q2 FY2014 and Q3 FY2014 to Q2 FY2015.

------------- H2FY13/H1FY14 -- H2FY14/H1FY15 - %
China ---------- 2,631 ---------- 5,822 ----- 221%
India --------- 23,099 --------- 42,390 ----- 184%
Mexico ----------- 861 ---------- 1,374 ----- 160%
Philippines ---- 1,056 ---------- 1,453 ----- 138%
ROW ----------- 12,600 --------- 21,792 ----- 173%

ALL ----------- 40,247 --------- 72,831 ----- 181%

As per Permchecker, here are the stats. Permchecker pulls stats directly from DOL site.

-------------- FY14 H1 - FY15 H1 - % of FY14
China ---------- 1,829 --- 2,596 ---- 142%
India --------- 14,522 -- 17373 ---- 120%
Mexico ----------- 602 ----- 558 ---- 92%
Philippines ------ 684 ----- 540 ----- 79%
ROW ------------ 8,535 -- 8,941 ---- 104%
ALL ----------- 26,172 -- 30,008 ---- 115%

[Jagan01]

First - it will not reach 01-May-09 on its own considering the porting volume and the cases before 01-May-09 that did not get approved last time around. I personally do think that it will reach at least 01-Nov-09 with whatever piddly spillover we receive this year. The density between May and Nov 2009 is really low so it is not going to take too much spillover for that jump.

I think the movement will be much lesser than what you mentioned. We already have used approx 2500 of the current FY EB2I quota. So may be ~500 remaining. No spillover from EB4/EB5. EB1 might give ~500. So that is total of ~1000 visas. EB2ROW is the key and I would assume that EB2ROW would yield anywhere between 3000 to 8000. That would mean that EB2I still has another 4000 to 9000 GCs to allot.

Looking at the inventory, it is evident that 4000 would help cover demand until Feb 2009 and 9000 would cover it until Aug 2009. I think anything beyond Aug 2009 is a being insanely optimistic. Important to note that the discussion is about considering the possibility of getting GCs and not about just getting current.

[Spectator]

As per Permchecker, here are the stats. Permchecker pulls stats directly from DOL site.

redsox,

Permchecker has not updated their figures for when the OFLC system was down for extended periods, so it is not capturing all the PERM Certifications.

Permchecker has no data for the period February 12 2015 to March 4 2015 inclusive and only shows 20 cases for March 5 (when there were 365). It is also missing the data for March 25 2015 to March 30 2015 inclusive.

As a result, you are missing about 6.4k certifications.

In my post, I said it was "my best stab".

My figures include those cases missing in Permchecker using a couple of cheats and an awful lot of hard work.

The period Feb 12 to Feb 28 was prorated by Country based on the % already seen in the previous period.
For the period Mar 1 to Mar 5, I went through all 1.3k ETA 9089 to extract the Country information.
For the period Mar 25 to Mar 30, most of the certifications were for CTS. I assigned all those to India. Analyzing the other CTS certifications (now nearly 5k in total) suggests that will be 98-99% accurate. I looked at the individual ETA9089 for all non-CTS cases over that period.

I can tell you - it took a very long time and was extremely boring.

I also checked the numbers against the original OFLC source. I had to add and delete a few cases since the OFLC has changed slightly since the figures were first made available. Dolstats has not done this, so the Q2 figures will vary slightly from their numbers.

[suninphx]

Spec- thanks again for all the effort and pointers.

[Spectator]

Spec- thanks again for all the effort and pointers.

suninphx,

Thanks.

I don't think I would do it again. I'd just wait for the Quarterly Disclosure Data, even though that shows Nationality rather than Country of Birth.

[anuprab]

It's been a while I asked anything on this forum. From all the discussions that's been going on looks like my fate is sealed for the next 2 years. I am on EB3 with priority date of Dec 2006 and my husband is on EB2 with priority date of may 3 2010. I curse the day his lawyer messed up with his oct 2007 labor filing but this is fate I guess! My question is are there any chances for inventory build this year or next? I wouldn't care much for getting the card at this point. Experts can you throw some light. I going crazy over the past few days and don't see any positive momentum on the executive actions as well!

[Spectator]

I saw this some time ago and meant to make a comment, but it slipped my mind. I'm sure many of you are already aware of it.

In the FY 2016 DEPARTMENT OF LABOR BUDGET IN BRIEF (page 27) DOL asked for the following funding for the Foreign Labor Certification programs:

For FY 2016, the Department requests $61,589,000 and 189 FTE for Federal Administration.

These resources will support the operation, management, and oversight of the Foreign Labor Certification programs. The FY 2016 request includes a one-time request for funding of $13,000,000 to support 17 Term FTE to reduce the escalating backlog of Permanent Labor Certification Program (PERM) cases. With these resources, OFLC projects that 96,450 PERM applications will be processed – a 36 percent increase from FY 2014 and over 16,000 more applications than are expected to be received in FY 2016.

The reported backlog at the end of Q1 FY2015 was 64.8k.

I thought it noteworthy, since backlog reduction efforts generally result in higher ROW certifications than normal, which could result in increased EB2 demand at a future date.

That aside, it would be great news for those people who have a PERM stuck in the backlog.

Of course, it is just a request at this stage and it may not be approved.

In recent years, the backlog reached 66.7k in FY2009 before the last reduction effort and fell as low as 20k for FY2011/FY2012, before increasing to 55-60k in FY2014.