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Updated

PERM jobs in Cambridge, MA

Decisions
4,131
Approved
98.3%
Median certified wage
$115,000
Years
FY2016 to FY2026

Year by year

  • certified
  • denied
  • withdrawn
Fiscal years run October to September. More

Fiscal years run October to September. FY2016 to FY2023 come from DOL's closed-year files, and FY2024 on from its current ones. The newest year is partial until DOL publishes its fourth quarter.

Every year as a table
Fiscal year Certified Denied Withdrawn
FY2016 435 6 18
FY2017 258 13 14
FY2018 385 8 10
FY2019 301 5 6
FY2020 310 5 8
FY2021 385 4 10
FY2022 308 3 17
FY2023 430 9 25
FY2024 354 5 24
FY2025 411 5 25
FY2026 309 6 19

Top sponsors

Top occupations

Industries

Countries of citizenship

Worker's education

  • Master's 1,965
  • Bachelor's 729
  • Doctorate 459
  • None 83
  • Other 50
  • High School 8
  • Associate's 5

Visa held when filed

  • H-1B 2,490
  • L-1 290
  • F-1 257
  • TN 71
  • NOT IN USA 34
  • O-1 20
  • J-1 19
  • E-2 13
  • B-2 10
  • E-3 9

H-1B in Cambridge, MA

17,280 labor condition applications name a worksite here, FY2020 to FY2026, and DOL certified 16,063 (93%). An LCA is the employer's wage attestation before an H-1B petition, so it counts positions offered. It doesn't count people hired.

Jobs, certified LCAs since FY2024

  1. Software Developers 1,098
  2. Molecular and Cellular Biologists 833
  3. Biochemists and Biophysicists 406
  4. Data Scientists 346
  5. Medical Scientists, Except Epidemiologists 309
  6. Computer Systems Engineers/Architects 179
  7. Computer and Information Research Scientists 148
  8. Chemists 121
  9. Statisticians 110
  10. Operations Research Analysts 108

Where Cambridge, MA sits

County
Middlesex County
Census places Cambridge city in it
Metro area
Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH
Metropolitan statistical area
DOL wage area
Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH
The area DOL sets prevailing wages for, wage year 2026-27

108.3 is BEA's price level for the Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH metro area in 2024, against 100 for the country as a whole; for housing rents it's 148.4. A salary here buys about 92% of what the same salary buys at the national price level.

What these jobs pay in Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH BLS May 2025, DOL wage year 2026-27
  • Software Developers
    275 PERM decisions
  • Statisticians
    257 PERM decisions
  • Biochemists and Biophysicists
    239 PERM decisions
  • Bioinformatics Scientists
    156 PERM decisions
  • Computer and Information Systems Managers
    94 PERM decisions
  • Medical Scientists, Except Epidemiologists
    76 PERM decisions
$100k$200k$300k
  • middle half of pay (BLS)
  • median
  • 10th to 90th percentile
  • DOL's Levels I to IV, left to right
Market pay and DOL wage levels for the jobs filed most here
Job BLS median Level I Level II Level III Level IV
Software Developers $166,090 $114,275 $138,237 $162,198 $186,160
Statisticians $102,320 $76,960 $98,342 $119,746 $141,128
Biochemists and Biophysicists $131,550 $90,730 $114,795 $138,882 $162,947
Bioinformatics Scientists $110,410 $77,626 $100,755 $123,885 $147,014
Computer and Information Systems Managers $214,960 $151,570 $185,765 $219,960 $254,155
Medical Scientists, Except Epidemiologists $129,500 $85,550 $109,533 $133,494 $157,477

Any job in any area, and every wage year since 2021-22, in the wage-level tool.

The jobs filed most in Cambridge, MA: what employers in the metro report paying everyone in each, and DOL's four prevailing wage levels there. BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics; DOL OFLC wage tables

The worksite city on each application, from DOL's decided cases since FY2016. Spellings of one city are pooled, and a city counts as one place per state.

Case data through Jun 30, 2026 · LCA disclosures through Jun 30, 2026 · Census places and metros through Jan 1, 2026 · BLS market pay through May 31, 2025 · DOL wage tables through Jul 1, 2026. How these figures are counted. Spotted an error? Tell us; every fix is dated in the corrections log.

The sources in full

Case data: DOL quarterly disclosure files (flag.dol.gov) · data through Jun 30, 2026 · quarterly

LCA disclosures: DOL quarterly LCA disclosure files (www.dol.gov) · data through Jun 30, 2026 · quarterly

Census places and metros: Census Bureau Gazetteer and metro delineation files (census.gov) · data through Jan 1, 2026 · yearly

BLS market pay: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (bls.gov) · data through May 31, 2025 · yearly, each spring

DOL wage tables: DOL OFLC wage data downloads (flag.dol.gov) · data through Jul 1, 2026 · yearly, each july

What each source includes

Case data: Decided PERM cases only. A case still waiting isn't in here, so counts and durations describe finished cases.

LCA disclosures: Certified and denied H-1B labor condition applications only, with the wage offered.

Census places and metros: Where each worksite city sits: its county, metro area and DOL wage area, matched to Census's place and county files. A city Census lists in no single place is left unmatched. This site doesn't guess it.

BLS market pay: Pay employers report for everyone in each job, from BLS's yearly survey (May of the year named). It's shown nationally, by state and by metro. It covers citizens and immigrants alike, and it isn't drawn from PERM offers.

DOL wage tables: The four prevailing wage levels DOL publishes for every job in every area, each wage year from 2021-22, as DOL's own tables print them. They're the floors an offer is held to. They don't show what anyone was paid.

Cite this page

Waiting on a PERM case?

  • When it'll likely be decided
  • An email when DOL moves it

It's on your ETA-9089 receipt. A case number looks like G-100-26125-868956.

Don't have the number?