Employment and Training Administration March 16, 2006 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The Employment and Training Administration (ETA) of the Department of Labor (Department or DOL) is issuing this Notice to announce: the 2006 AEWRS for employers seeking to employ temporary or seasonal nonimmigrant alien workers to perform agricultural labor or services (H-2A workers) or logging (H-2 logging workers); the allowable charges for 2006, that employers seeking H-2A workers and H-2 logging workers may levy upon their workers when three meals a day are provided by the employer; and the maximum travel subsistence reimbursement which a worker with receipts may claim in 2006. AEWRs are the minimum wage rates the Department has determined must be offered and paid to U.S. and alien workers by employers of H-2A workers or H-2 logging workers. AEWRs are established to prevent the employment of these aliens from adversely affecting wages of similarly employed U.S. workers. The Department announces the AEWRs for 2006. The Department also announces the new rates for 2006, which covered agricultural and logging employers may charge their workers for three daily meals. Under specified conditions, workers are entitled to reimbursement for travel subsistence expenses. The minimum reimbursement is the charge for three daily meals as noted above. The Department also announces the current maximum reimbursement that may be claimed in 2006, by workers with receipts.

In December 2002, the Employment and Training Administration (ETA) began a review of the performance management system for the Unemployment Insurance (UI) program. The review addressed the following topics: (a) The performance measures; (b) the criteria used to gauge success against the measures; and (c) the administration of UI Performs. ETA conducted the review in significant consultation with State Workforce Agencies (SWAs) and indirectly through the National Association of State Workforce Agencies' Subcommittee for UI Performs. ETA contracted with Mathematica Policy Research, Inc. to assist with the data analyses. The review resulted in a recommendation that ETA publish a guidance to streamline the UI performance management system (UI Performs) in the following three significant ways: (1) Reduce the number of performance goals to a few ``core'' measures; (2) utilize the data of the remaining measures for program management with no performance goals; and (3) streamline the State Quality Service Plan narrative. In response, on June 16, 2004, ETA published UIPL No. 21-04, which outlined the proposed changes to UI Perform and invited public comments. (69 FR 33669 (2004)).