screech339 said:
I think and I may be wrong. But I think they increased the time required due to abuse of temporary worker hiring by employers. One common abuse of this is the nanny employment.
I called a very prominent law firm to inquire about possibilities of obtaining a work permit, and they asked me the following, "Does she have a job offer lined up?"
I told them she does not have one right now but she will work on getting one, and they responded, "You just get the job offer and we'll take care of the LMO."
They made it sound like $$$$ = LMO. I guess if people are abusing the system then they will be cracking down.