The U.S. Justice Department announced on August 4 that OpenAI and its subsidiary Statsig will pay a combined $3.2 million to resolve allegations that they discriminated against U.S. workers while hiring through the Permanent Labor Certification (PERM) program. Investigators found OpenAI did not post PERM positions on its external careers site as it did for other roles, required paper-only applications for those positions, and ran late-night radio ads — steps that discouraged U.S. applicants. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon called the settlement "substantial" and said it ensures OpenAI "redresses harm and changes its recruitment practices." OpenAI will pay $1.2 million in civil penalties and establish a $2 million back-pay fund, and must post positions publicly, accept electronic applications, train staff and submit to monitoring. The deal is the thirteenth under the DOJ's Protecting U.S. Workers Initiative, which enforces a ban on citizenship-status discrimination in hiring.

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