Updated
PERM occupation, SOC 25-1124.00, #178 of 1,410 by filings
Foreign Language and Literature Teachers, Postsecondary
- Biggest sponsor
- US ARMY DEFENSE LANGUAGE INSTITUTE FOREIGN LANGUAGE CENTER · 7% of its filings
- Busiest state
- CA · 14% of its filings
- Major group
- Education and library · SOC 25
Weighing an offer for this job?
Where it falls among certified offers, and the four wage levels DOL sets for it by area.
This rate is level with the field
Over 239 decided filings, this rate can't be told apart from the field in either direction.
Why
The 95% interval runs up to a 3.6% denial rate, which still covers the 3.20% the field as a whole records.
Median wage
$72,000
all PERM $103,272
Filings
246
#178 of 1,410
Approval
98.7%
field 96.8%
Median days
483
6 slower than the field
What it pays
Where its median offer sits among every occupation, then the whole ladder of certified offers by year and by state.
Median offered wage
$72,000above 53%
Approval rate
98.7%ahead of 80%
Median days to decision
483 daysahead of 29%
Each bar counts occupations at that value. More
- 5th to 95th
- 25th to 75th
- Median
- 10th and 90th
FY2025
$70,000 median · 101 certified cases
FY2026
$71,852 median · 126 certified cases
- 10th
- $52,829
- +5.7% since FY2025
- Median
- $71,852
- +2.6% since FY2025
- 90th
- $91,540
- +4.2% since FY2025
- 95th
- $97,710
- +4.9% since FY2025
Each row is that fiscal year's certified filings, counted on their own. A percentile is over the year, so a year with far fewer cases behind it is a thinner measurement than one with more.
| Fiscal year | Cases | 5th | 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th | 95th |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FY2025 | 101 | $45,960 | $50,000 | $56,680 | $70,000 | $84,000 | $87,887 | $93,134 |
| FY2026 | 126 | $50,045 | $52,829 | $60,102 | $71,852 | $85,554 | $91,540 | $97,710 |
A median answers whether pay moved. More
Who files it
The sponsors and firms with the most PERM filings under this code, the places the work sits, and who the workers were.
Sponsors filing it
- US ARMY DEFENSE LANGUAGE INSTITUTE FOREIGN LANGUAGE CENTER 16 filings
- University of Michigan 7 filings
- University of Arkansas 6 filings
- University of Notre Dame du Lac 6 filings
- Indiana University 5 filings
- Texas Tech University 5 filings
How this is counted
The employers with the most applications under this code. 45 of 246 filings, 18% of the total.
Firms filing it
- US ARMY DEFENSE LANGUAGE INSTITUTE FOREIGN LANGUAGE CENTER 16 filings
- Ware | Immigration 11 filings
- Curran, Berger & Kludt 10 filings
- FRAGOMEN, DEL REY, BERNSEN & LOEWY, LLP 9 filings
- Dunn Law Firm, LLP 7 filings
- Kempster, Corcoran, Quiceno & Lenz-Calvo, LTD 6 filings
How this is counted
The law firms named on the most applications under this code. 59 of 246 filings, 24% of the total.
Where the jobs are
- California 35
- New York 21
- Indiana 14
- Massachusetts 13
- Texas 12
- Georgia 11
How this is counted
The worksite state on the application, which is where the job is and not where the company is headquartered. Volume by state across everyone is on the state map. These 6 states cover 106 of 246 filings.
Where the work is
- Monterey, CA 19
- Ann Arbor, MI 7
- Atlanta, GA 7
- New York, NY 7
- Fayetteville, AR 6
- Notre Dame, IN 6
How this is counted
The worksite city on the application, which is where the job is. These 6 cities cover 52 of 246 filings.
- Every sponsor that files it, by state, approval rate, offered wage and time to a decision
- Every filing for it, PERM, wage requests and H-1B, case by case
Newspapers it advertised in
- 4 cases
Chicago Sun-Times
- 2 cases
The Salt Lake Tribune
- 2 cases
Winston-Salem Journal
- 1 cases
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
- 1 cases
Bloomington Herald Times
- 1 cases
Burlington Times News
How this is counted
The newspaper or professional journal named for each case's two print ads, one count per paper per case, however the filer spelled it.
Additional steps it used
- 24 cases
Job search websites
- 20 cases
Local or ethnic newspapers
- 17 cases
The employer's website
- 4 cases
Campus placement offices
- 4 cases
Radio or TV ads
- 2 cases
Private employment firms
How this is counted
The steps a professional job needs beyond the job order and the ads, by the number of cases that name each.
How long before filing it began
- 0.0%
Under 30 days
- 0.0%
30 to 59 days
- 38%
60 to 89 days
- 25%
90 to 119 days
- 21%
120 to 149 days
- 17%
150 to 180 days
- 0.0%
Over 180 days
How this is counted
Days from the first recruitment step to the filing. 20 C.F.R. § 656.17(e) puts the job order and ads 30 to 180 days before filing.
The job itself
What O*NET says the work is, what the market pays it by BLS's survey, its outlook, and DOL's wage levels year by year.
- United States19,830 jobs
- Salinas, CAMonterey
- Ann Arbor, MIAnn Arbor
- Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell, GAAtlanta
- New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJNew York
- Fayetteville-Springdale-Rogers, ARFayetteville
- middle half of pay (BLS)
- median
- 10th to 90th percentile
- DOL's Levels I to IV, left to right
- median PERM offer
| Area | BLS median | Level I | Level II | Level III | Level IV |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United States | $79,350 | ||||
| Salinas, CA | — | $57,260 | $82,187 | $107,113 | $132,040 |
| Ann Arbor, MI | $84,000 | $62,670 | $78,317 | $93,963 | $109,610 |
| Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell, GA | $79,670 | $50,700 | $66,377 | $82,053 | $97,730 |
| New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ | $98,600 | $54,780 | $82,553 | $110,327 | $138,100 |
| Fayetteville-Springdale-Rogers, AR | — | $45,650 | $57,103 | $68,557 | $80,010 |
How these figures fit together
BLS surveys employers on what they pay everyone in a job; DOL builds its four levels from the same survey a year later (the July 2026 wage year uses BLS's May 2025 estimates). DOL publishes levels by area, not nationally, so the United States line has none. Levels are hourly in DOL's tables; here they're shown a year at 2,080 hours, as DOL computes them. The metros are the ones holding the most of this job's PERM filings, placed by Census's county files.
The block is the middle half of what employers report paying everyone in this job, citizen or not; the ticks under it are DOL's four prevailing wage levels for that metro, the floors a PERM or H-1B offer is held to. More
DOL's levels for this job in Salinas, CA, year by year
Each July DOL resets the four levels from BLS's newest survey. A determination keeps the figures of the year it was issued in.
| Wage year | Level I | Level II | Level III | Level IV |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-27 | $57,260 | $82,187 | $107,113 | $132,040 |
| 2025-26 | $56,510 | $84,383 | $112,257 | $140,130 |
| 2024-25 | $64,180 | $85,840 | $107,500 | $129,160 |
| 2023-24 | $64,910 | $86,393 | $107,877 | $129,360 |
| 2022-23 | $70,250 | $95,940 | $121,630 | $147,320 |
| 2021-22 | $56,560 | $67,863 | $79,167 | $90,470 |
What the job is
Teach languages and literature courses in languages other than English. Includes teachers of American Sign Language (ASL). Includes both teachers primarily engaged in teaching and those who do a combination of teaching and research.
- Preparation
- Extensive Preparation Needed
- O*NET Job Zone 5
- DOL's education basis
- Doctoral or professional degree
- Wage year 2026-27, on DOL's Appendix A list
- Jobs, 2025 to 2035
- +0.2%
- About 1,600 openings a year (BLS)
- Typical entry
- Doctoral or professional degree
- BLS
The work, most important first
- Prepare course materials, such as syllabi, homework assignments, and handouts.
- Maintain student attendance records, grades, and other required records.
- Evaluate and grade students' class work, assignments, and papers.
- Initiate, facilitate, and moderate classroom discussions.
- Prepare and deliver lectures to undergraduate or graduate students on topics such as how to speak and write a foreign language and the cultural aspects of areas where a particular language is used.
- Conduct research in a particular field of knowledge and publish findings in scholarly journals, books, or electronic media.
The education workers in it report
- 9%
Bachelor's Degree
- 18%
Master's Degree
- 73%
Doctoral Degree
Titles people use for it
French Professor, Professor, Spanish Instructor, Spanish Professor, Assistant Professor, Associate Professor, Foreign Languages Professor, German Professor.
Related jobs: English Language and Literature Teachers, Postsecondary, Area, Ethnic, and Cultural Studies Teachers, Postsecondary, Secondary School Teachers, Except Special and Career/Technical Education, Adult Basic Education, Adult Secondary Education, and English as a Second Language Instructors, History Teachers, Postsecondary, Middle School Teachers, Except Special and Career/Technical Education.
This section includes information from the O*NET 31.0 Database and O*NET OnLine by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA), used under the CC BY 4.0 license. O*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. PERM Tracker has modified some of this information (the shares are rounded and only the top tasks are shown); what changed. USDOL/ETA has not approved, endorsed, or tested these modifications.
Against other jobs
Where this sits in the ranking
Ranked 178 of 1,410 by volume: 177 filed at least as many filings, and 1,232 filed no more.
- Just above
- Actuaries 251 filings
- Just below
- Validation Engineer 244 filings
Other education and library roles
Occupations sharing this one's SOC major group, which is carried in the first two digits of the code. More
Occupations sharing this one's SOC major group, which is carried in the first two digits of the code. Wages inside a group still swing hard, because the group holds every seniority level and every metro.
- #172 Economics Teachers, Postsecondary 269 filings · 5 denied
- #165 N/A 287 filings · 47 denied
- #196 N/A 220 filings · 4 denied
- #155 Mathematical Science Teachers, Postsecondary 309 filings · 6 denied
- #148 Engineering Teachers, Postsecondary 329 filings · 4 denied
- #147 Middle School Teachers, Except Special and Career/Technical Education 334 filings · 6 denied
The same job on H-1B
3,149 certified H-1B labor condition applications for this occupation since FY2020, offering a median of $64,180 a year; the middle half ran $54,640 to $75,750. By state and year in the salary explorer.
Notes on these numbers
Reading the wage
A floor, not a salary survey: every level and metro mixed. DOL's four wage levels for this job, by area.
What the median is
The median wage employers committed to in federal filings for this occupation. It mixes every experience level and every metro, and it's a floor: the employer must offer at least the prevailing wage DOL determines for the occupation, level and county. Across all PERM filings the middle half of offered wages runs $45,178 to $141,357, so a figure inside that band is unremarkable whichever occupation it belongs to. The levels page reads DOL's OFLC wage search live.
What these numbers don't say
4 notes
- The code is the identity
- This one is SOC 25-1124.00. Two SOC codes can carry the same job title, so a title that looks duplicated on the ranking is two different occupations. Match on the code when you're checking a specific filing.
- A median isn’t an offer
- It's the middle of all 246 wages committed to for this occupation across the country, entry level and principal alike. The same role's medians swing hard by worksite, which the state map shows directly.
- Approval isn’t about the occupation
- The denial rate moves with what happened in the filing rather than with the job title, so nothing here is a property of Foreign Language and Literature Teachers, Postsecondary. The measured factors are on the denial risk page, published as separate rates.
- Nothing here is pending
- All 246 counted here carry a decision date, because every case in DOL's disclosure files does, so a case still waiting is in none of them. The largest filer of this occupation is US ARMY DEFENSE LANGUAGE INSTITUTE FOREIGN LANGUAGE CENTER. Where the queue stands today is on the processing times page.
The window these figures cover: DOL's PERM disclosure files for fiscal years 2024 to 2026, through the third quarter of 2026, 373,939 decided cases. Nothing pending is counted here. How each figure is built
Weighing an offer?
Compare it against this median, then check the state map, where the same occupation's medians swing hard by worksite.
Setting one?
All 1,410 occupations sort together on the wages page, and denial rates show how outcome moves with the offered wage.
Filings newer than DOL's last published file can't be attributed to this occupation until DOL publishes them. The live list on the case search page carries them by employer.
Case data: DOL quarterly disclosure files (flag.dol.gov) · data through Jun 30, 2026 · quarterly
Employers and firms: Derived from DOL's disclosure files · data through Jun 30, 2026 · rebuilt with each quarterly load
O*NET occupation data: O*NET Database, USDOL/ETA (onetcenter.org) · data through Aug 16, 2026 · twice a year
BLS market pay: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (bls.gov) · data through May 31, 2025 · yearly, each spring
BLS employment projections: BLS Employment Projections (bls.gov) · data through Dec 31, 2025 · yearly, each autumn
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.
Employers and firms: Employers, law firms and occupations ranked from decided cases only.
O*NET occupation data: What O*NET says each occupation is and takes: its description, tasks, Job Zone and the education workers report. A description of the job everywhere, not of any one employer's opening.
BLS market pay: What employers report paying everyone in each job, nationally, by state and by metro, from BLS's yearly survey (May of the year named). Citizens and immigrants alike; not PERM offers.
BLS employment projections: BLS's ten-year projection of each job's employment and yearly openings, and the entry education it calls typical. A projection, not a count.
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. The floors an offer is held to, not what anyone was paid.
Cite this page
Waiting on a PERM case?
- When it'll likely be decided
- An email when DOL moves it