WASHINGTON — Layoffs may be sweeping the United States, but one enterprise is hiring roughly 1.4 million people nationwide at salaries of $10 to $25 an hour: the 2010 census.
A small army of laborers will be needed to locate, count and categorize each of the nation’s residents. This spring, 140,000 workers will verify addresses across the country, and in 2010, an estimated 1.2 million census employees will take to the streets to gather information from Americans who didn’t return their census forms, according to U.S. Census Bureau spokesman Stephen Buckner.
The bureau has received an overwhelming response, Buckner said — more than 1 million applicants just for those first 140,000 jobs. Moreover, he’s been hearing from regional census directors that the pool of applicants has been very strong.
“We’re getting a very highly qualified group of applicants, people that have college degrees, graduate degrees, doctorate degrees, former lawyers, bankers, even Wall Street-type individuals,” he said. “Keep in mind that these are part-time, temporary jobs, and in these conditions, additional money where you can get it” can help.
Census workers make between $10 and $25 an hour, depending on local supply and demand. Urban workers generally make higher wages, and because of the high population concentration, more census workers are needed in cities. However, some of the hardest work is done in the rural areas because homes are so sparse.
“Trying to count every single person living in the United States in a very short amount of time is no small challenge,” Buckner said. “We literally have to walk every single street and path and dirt road to make sure we don’t miss anyone.” Because of the nation’s constantly increasing population, next year’s census will be the largest census ever, Buckner said, as 2000’s was before it. The number of people hired by the Census Bureau is directly proportional to the number of census forms that aren’t returned, and response rates have fallen since the 1970 census.
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