OFLC Updates Wage Statistics for July 2025-June 2026

DOL Foreign Labor (PERM) Announcements

Published July 1st, 2025

Detected March 5th, 2026

Summary

The Office of Foreign Labor Certification (OFLC) has published updated Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) for the July 2025 through June 2026 wage year. These updates include revised Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) delineations based on the 2020 Census, impacting prevailing wage determinations.

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What changed

The Office of Foreign Labor Certification (OFLC) has issued updated prevailing wage data for the July 2025 through June 2026 wage year, effective July 1, 2025. This update incorporates revised Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) delineations based on the 2020 Census, which may alter the geographic areas used for prevailing wage determinations. The update also reflects the 2018 SOC codes and provides updated job zones and education data.

Employers and legal professionals involved in foreign labor certification processes should review the technical release notes and updated data. The changes to MSA delineations will be applied to all prevailing wage determinations issued from the National Prevailing Wage Center starting with this wage year. While no specific compliance deadline is mentioned, entities should be aware of these changes when preparing or filing labor condition applications and prevailing wage requests.

What to do next

Review OFLC Technical Release Notes for July 2025-June 2026 Wage Year.
Familiarize with updated Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) delineations based on the 2020 Census.
Incorporate updated wage data and area definitions into prevailing wage determination requests.

Source document (simplified)

OFLC Issues Technical Release Notes for the Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics Update for the July 2025 through June 2026 Wage Year

On July 1, 2025, the Office of Foreign Labor Certification published the latest prevailing wage data from the Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) as generated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics for the new wage year from July 2025 through June 2026. Prevailing wage determinations issued from the National Prevailing Wage Center reflect the 2018 SOC codes.

The metropolitan statistical areas (MSA) used for the May 2024 OEWS wage estimates were updated to reflect the delineations based on the 2020 Census. As a result of this update, new MSAs were created, some existing MSAs underwent name and/or compositional changes, and other existing MSAs were dropped from publication. Some non-MSA areas were added, dropped, or modified due to the new MSA delineations. For the New England states, the New England City and Town Areas (NECTAs) were discontinued, and OEWS published the MSAs and non-MSA areas for these states. BLS has published a spreadsheet of area names and definitions used in the May 2024 OEWS estimates. OFLC will apply these updated area delineations beginning with this wage year, July 2025 through June 2026.