US restores H-1B and foreign worker processing after month-long outage

The US Department of Labor has confirmed that its Office of Foreign Labor Certification (OFLC) has restarted processing across all temporary and permanent employment visa programmes, after nearly a month of disruption caused by a government funding lapse that triggered a partial shutdown.

The outage which began around September 30 stalled critical services for employers dependent on foreign workers, including tech, healthcare, research and specialised industries.

With systems now back online, employers can once again file new Labor Condition Applications (LCAs) for H-1B visas, follow existing cases through the portal, and submit documentation for both temporary and permanent foreign labor requests.

According to the announcement, the Foreign Labor Application Gateway (FLAG) platform has been restored, along with SeasonalJobs.dol.gov the registry that lists H-2A and H-2B seasonal job postings.

The Department of Labor also cautioned that, due to the backlog from the outage and the expected surge in fresh filings, processing times may be slower than usual during this transition period.