Employment and Training Administration April 2019 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

This notice announces allotments for PY 2019 for WIOA Title I Youth, Adult and Dislocated Worker Activities programs; final allotments for Employment Service (ES) activities under the Wagner- Peyser Act for PY 2019 and the allotments of Workforce Information Grants to States for PY 2019. WIOA allotments for states and the state final allotments for the Wagner-Peyser Act are based on formulas defined in their respective statutes. WIOA requires allotments for the Outlying Areas to be competitively awarded rather than based on a formula determined by the Secretary of Labor (Secretary) as occurred under the Workforce Investment Act (WIA). However, for PY 2019, the Department of Defense and Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Appropriations Act, 2019 and Continuing Appropriations Act, 2019 waives the competition requirement, and the Secretary is using the discretionary formula rationale and methodology for allocating PY 2019 funds for the Outlying Areas (American Samoa, Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, the Republic of Palau, and the United States Virgin Islands) that was published in the Federal Register on February 17, 2000. WIOA specifically included the Republic of Palau as an Outlying Area, except during any period for which the Secretary of Labor and the Secretary of Education determine that a Compact of Free Association is in effect and contains provisions for training and education assistance prohibiting the assistance provided under WIOA; no such determinations prohibiting assistance have been made. The formula that the Department of Labor (Department) used for PY 2019 is the same formula used in PY 2018 and is described in the section on Youth Activities program allotments. The Department invites comments only on the formula used to allot funds to the Outlying Areas.

The Department of Labor's (DOL's), Employment and Training Administration (ETA) is soliciting comments concerning a proposed information collection request (ICR) titled, ``Required Elements of an Unemployment Insurance (UI) Reemployment Services and Eligibility Assessment (RESEA) Grant State Plan.'' This comment request is part of continuing Departmental efforts to reduce paperwork and respondent burden in accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (PRA).

The Department of Labor (Department or DOL) is issuing new regulations governing the certification of temporary employment opportunities to be filled by nonimmigrant workers in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) and the obligations applicable to employers of such workers under the CNMI-Only Transitional Worker visa program (CW-1). This interim final rule (IFR), implementing provisions of the Northern Mariana Islands U.S. Workforce Act of 2018 (Workforce Act), establishes the process by which a CNMI employer will obtain a prevailing wage determination (PWD) and temporary labor certification (TLC) from DOL for use in petitioning the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to employ a nonimmigrant worker in CW-1 status. Although the CW-1 visa classification predates the Workforce Act, classification as a CW-1 nonimmigrant does not currently require a labor certification. The Workforce Act institutes a labor certification requirement as a prerequisite for approval of a CW-1 petition by DHS and charges the Department with promulgating an IFR to administer this new labor certification requirement. We are also issuing regulations to provide for increased worker protections for both United States (U.S.) and foreign workers to ensure no U.S. worker is placed at a competitive disadvantage compared to a foreign worker or is displaced by a foreign worker.