Compiled By CityTownInfo.com Staff
February 10, 2010
The U.S. Census Bureau has already recruited about 2.4 million people for temporary jobs, but thousands of positions still remain open.
"The majority of census jobs are enumerator jobs, meaning people who go out and knock on doors and follow up with people who haven't returned their census forms." explained Sari Anderson, assistant chief of the field division, who is in charge of hiring workers for the 2010 Census and was interviewed in The Washington Post. "They conduct an interview--short, 10 questions--and make sure we get accurate, complete census data for the whole country."
Anderson told the Post when reviewing applications, recruiters factor in work availability and language skills. She added that the bureau is still trying to hire people to help in small neighborhoods around the country, where it is difficult to find people to work. WYFF 4 in South Carolina reports, for example, that officials at the Anderson Local Census Office are trying to find workers for 1,300 jobs which begin pay at $11.25 an hour.
"These important jobs offer attractive pay, flexibility and on-the-job training," said Wayne Mickey, the manager of the Anderson census office, who was quoted by WYFF 4. "People can work in their communities, for their communities. Census jobs count in many ways."
Other areas are offering even higher wages. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that census takers can earn $18.45 an hour helping to reach some of the region's notoriously hard-to-count constituencies, such as immigrants and minorities.
The 2000 census failed to count an estimated 123,000 Georgia residents, which resulted in a loss of about $210 million in federal money over the decade. Only 65 percent of Georgians were counted in 2000, but officials have pledged to do better this year.
"There's a blend of apathy and fear," explained Diana Schwartz, a spokesperson for the Census Bureau, who was quoted in the Journal-Constitution, "but our message to them is that their families stand to lose if they're not counted."
While the jobs are most certainly a breath of fresh air for unemployed workers searching for employment, Anderson stressed that the census jobs are short-term and temporary. "We have just a few weeks to get the job done," she told the Post, "so most people will only work a few weeks."
