Employment and Training Administration – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The Department of Labor (we or the Department) is issuing this notice to correct a previous announcement of prevailing wage rates covering the employment of certain temporary or seasonal nonimmigrant foreign workers (H-2A workers) and certain domestic workers engaged in open range production of livestock in Texas, Wyoming, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Oklahoma. In addition, the Department is rescinding the wage determinations listed in the January 8, 2013, Federal Register notice covering the employment of H-2A workers and certain domestic workers engaged in sheepherding and goatherding occupations in Arizona, Nevada, Oregon and Washington.

Title I of WIA (Pub. L. 105-220) requires the U.S. Secretary of Labor (Secretary) to update and publish the LLSIL tables annually, for uses described in the law (including determining eligibility for youth). WIA defines the term ``low income individual'' as one who qualifies under various criteria, including an individual who received income for a six-month period that does not exceed the higher level of the poverty line or 70 percent of the LLSIL. This issuance provides the Secretary's annual LLSIL for 2013 and references the current 2013 Health and Human Services ``Poverty Guidelines.''

The Employment and Training Administration (ETA), U.S. Department of Labor, announces the availability of approximately $6 million for grants to State Workforce Agencies (SWA) to develop the Workforce Data Quality Initiative (WDQI). Grants awarded will provide SWAs the opportunity to develop or expand State workforce longitudinal administrative data systems. These State longitudinal data systems will, at a minimum, include information on programs that provide training, employment services, and unemployment insurance; connect with education data contained in Statewide Longitudinal Data Systems (SLDS) databases; be linked longitudinally at the individual level to allow for enhanced opportunity for evaluation of federally and State-supported education programs; and lead to better information for customers and stakeholders of the workforce system. Where such longitudinal systems do not exist or are in early development, WDQI grant assistance may be used to design and develop these systems. WDQI grant assistance can also be used to improve upon existing State longitudinal systems. Current round one WDQI grant recipients who were awarded under solicitation SGA/DFA PY 09-10 and states that currently do not have a WDQI grant are eligible for this competition. The complete SGA and any subsequent SGA amendments in connection with this solicitation are described in further detail on ETA's Web site at https://www.doleta.gov/grants/ or on https://www.grants.gov. The Web sites provide application information, eligibility requirements, review and selection procedures, and other program requirements governing this solicitation.

The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), Employment and Training Administration (ETA), announces the availability of $12 million in grant funds authorized by the Workforce Investment Act to serve adult and youth ex-offenders. Services for ex-offenders will be targeted to females, but must also be open to eligible male ex-offenders. Strategies Targeting Characteristics Common to Female Ex-Offenders grants will be awarded through a competitive process. Under this solicitation, DOL expects to award eight grants up to $1.5 million each to cover a 37-month period of performance. These grants will include an integrated strategy of recruitment and assessment, empowerment and self- development, case management, education and training, workforce development, follow-up, and state/local partnerships. The complete SGA and any subsequent SGA amendments in connection with this solicitation are described in further detail on ETA's Web site at https://www.doleta.gov/grants/ or on https://www.grants.gov. The Web sites provide application information, eligibility requirements, review and selection procedures, and other program requirements governing this solicitation.

The Department of Labor's (Department's) Employment and Training Administration proposes to designate in regulation data exchange standards, developed in consultation with an interagency work group established by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), for Unemployment Insurance (UI) administration as required by amendments to Title IX of the Social Security Act (SSA) made by the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2012 (the Act). This proposed regulation would establish data exchange standards for three categories of information: real-time applications on the Interstate Connection Network (ICON); the State Information Data Exchange System (SIDES); and implementation of the standards identified for ICON and SIDES in major Information Technology (IT) modernization projects to upgrade UI Benefits and Tax systems by State Workforce Agencies (SWAs) using Federal funds.

The Employment and Training Administration (ETA) is announcing a new initiative to make available to the general public appropriately redacted copies of H-1B, H-1B1, E-3, H-2A, H-2B and permanent labor certification documents through its iCERT Visa Portal System. This new online tool, formally called the iCERT Labor Certification Registry (LCR), is a component of the Department of Labor's Open Government initiative and provides an additional level of transparency for the labor certification decisions issued by the ETA Office of Foreign Labor Certification (OFLC). The iCERT LCR provides searchable access to copies of labor certification documents and labor condition application documents as well as the latest quarterly and annual case file datasets through a single location. Public access to the iCERT LCR will be available at https://icert.doleta.gov beginning July 1, 2013.