Prevailing Wage Preview: H-2B Foreign Worker Salary Expectations for July 2024

On July 1 of each year, the Office of Foreign Labor Certification (OFLC) publishes prevailing wage rates and salaries that establish a floor for what U.S. businesses must pay foreign workers hired under H-2B and other work visa programs. The prevailing wage rates for seasonal H-2B visa workers announced on July 1 will apply for a 12-month period through June 30^th of the following year.  These wage rates are established separately for each occupation and geographic labor market area so that wages and working conditions for comparable U.S. workers are not adversely affected. The H-2B program relies on a single prevailing wage, the mean wage from the Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) Survey, for each occupation and labor market area.

We have developed a tool—the interactive tables below—that provides a preview of the prevailing wages that the OFLC will officially announce on July 1, 2024. Our interactive tool focuses on 34 occupations that account for a majority of H-2B visas in over 3,000 combinations of states and counties. The wage projections we present have a high degree of accuracy.  Using the tool, one can select a state, county, and occupation code/title. The wages are reported by calendar year according to the OEWS data tabulations.  Due to delays in collecting, processing, and publishing information, 2023 OEWS wages are used to set the prevailing wage that will be announced in July of this year and 2022 OEWS wages correspond to the current prevailing wage.

Our interactive tool is helpful because the percentage change in projected prevailing wages can be substantially different for different occupations and labor market areas. For example, for Landscaping and Groundskeeping Workers, the most common occupation for H-2B visa holders, one finds that:

• For Lauderdale County, Alabama and other counties in the Florence AL MSA, the prevailing wage will increase by 17.7% from $13.71 to $16.14.
• For Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana, and other parishes in the Houma LA MSA, the prevailing wage will decrease by 6.5% from $15.13 to $14.14.

Calculation and methodology notes:

For links to OFLC prevailing wage data as well as answers to frequently asked questions about occupation codes, geographic areas and wage levels see: https://www.flcdatacenter.com/.

OFLC prevailing wage levels are based on wage information collected by the BLS Occupational Employment and Wages Statistics (OEWS) program (see details at https://www.bls.gov/oes/oes_emp.htm#scope).

Wages in the interactive table above rely upon the OEWS data for calendar years 2022 and 2023.  Our prevailing wage projections directly correspond to the average wages for the same detailed occupation and geographic area. In the 2022 OEWS, some occupations lack sufficient data to report a wage for certain counties.  The tool will not report a wage for the July 2023 to June 2024 year for such occurrences.