Immigration

There are two important changes to the New Jersey PERM Labor Certification landscape that employers must take note of in 2025. First, New Jersey’s newspaper of general circulation, The Star-Ledger will cease print editions on February 1, 2025. Employers will need to find the next-highest circulation newspaper in print to place their Sunday ads for PERM jobs. Second, New Jersey will start enforcing its new pay transparency law on June 1, 2025. Employers must comply with this law’s requirements in all qualifying PERM job postings, as is already the case for jobs located in Jersey City.

The Star-Ledger is shutting down its print edition effective February 1, 2025

The Star-Ledger’s parent company, Advance Local, announced that it will no longer publish print editions, including the Sunday edition, after February 1, 2025.

As the newspaper with the highest circulation in New Jersey, this presents a problem for New Jersey employers at the job advertising stage of the PERM Labor Certification process. At this stage, all petitioning employers for both professional and non-professional occupations must post their job opening in two Sunday editions of “the newspaper of general circulation in the area of intended employment most appropriate to the occupation and the workers likely to apply for the job opportunity and most likely to bring responses from able, willing, qualified, and available U.S. workers.”[1] While the regulations do not state this specifically, it is generally understood that these advertisements must be published in the print edition of the Sunday newspaper.[2]

With the elimination of the print edition of The Star-Ledger, the Sunday ad requirement will need to be fulfilled by determining which is the next best newspaper of general circulation in the area most likely to elicit responses from available U.S. workers. In most cases, this is the next-highest circulation newspaper in the region. Employers should be aware that the next best Sunday newspaper may even be an out-of-state newspaper such as The New York Times. Due to the rapid decline of print editions of newspapers in general, it is also likely that the assessment of which Sunday newspaper is most appropriate may change from month to month.

New Jersey’s pay transparency law goes into effect June 1, 2025

In November 2024, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy signed a statewide pay transparency law which goes into effect June 1, 2025. This new law requires employers with 10 or more employees to disclose in each job posting “the hourly wage or salary, or a range of the hourly wage or salary, and a listing of benefits and other compensation programs for which the employee would be eligible within the employee’s first 12 months of employment.”[3] These requirements apply to every posting for promotions, new jobs, and transfer opportunities that a New Jersey employer advertises for both externally and internally. Thus, starting June 1, 2025 all PERM job postings for qualifying jobs located in New Jersey must include this required information.

Please note that pay transparency is already in effect for Jersey City, as it is in New York City, and in California, Colorado, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, Vermont, and Washington, D.C. As a reminder, Jersey City employers with five or more employees (including independent contractors) must include the minimum and maximum base salary or hourly wage and the job benefits offered in every job posting, print or digital.[4]