Posted on 01/23/2010 10:31:03 AM PST by Son House
EVERETT — When the government prepared to count everyone a decade ago, a lot of the people it hired changed their minds and walked off the job.
“Ten years ago, they were trying to find people who wanted to work,” Leland Dart, who manages the Everett office of the U.S. Census Bureau, said Thursday. “This time, that's not an issue.”
Dart, who will be in charge of gathering census information this spring from Snohomish County to the Canadian border in Western Washington, is preparing to hire about 1,000 temporary, part-time workers throughout the northern Puget Sound area.
The pay for the jobs isn't too bad.
Clerks make $13.25 an hour. Census takers who will work out of their homes will be paid $17.50 plus mileage.
Dart has already hired much of his basic staff of 75 people who will work full time. “They come from all walks of life,” he said. “I have one person who is an architect working as a clerk.”
Because there are so many people out of work, applicants have been “more educated and more motivated than in the past,” Dart said.
The last major census job was last spring, he noted, adding, “People didn't quit. They wanted those jobs.”
The higher caliber of applicants for census jobs these days is a bit of a double-edge sword, Dart said. Applicants need to take a test to be hired, and the higher scores the agency is getting these days make it harder to find applicants in some neighborhoods.
“We need people to count in their own neighborhoods,” Dart said, explaining that residents are much more likely to give information to a neighbor than to someone they don't know.
“We get a higher cooperation rate,” he said.
Dart said he will continue to hire full-time workers as the census ramps up, probably doubling the existing staff, but mostly what he needs are part-time workers who will start in late April or May gathering information near where they live.
The census data is important, he said, because it helps determine whether states deserve more representation in Congress and which areas get government grants. Just where the jobs will be depends in part on who doesn't send in a census form, requiring someone to come by.
“I don't know how many I'll be hiring and where I will put them,” Dart said. “But we're already testing like mad.”
Census jobs
The Everett office will host an open house to demonstrate how the Census operations will work from 1 to 3 p.m. Feb 3 at 1615 75th St., Suite 110.
It won't take job applications then, and people don't have to wait for the open house before applying for the mostly temporary, part-time work.
To apply, people should call 866-861-2010 for information on the nearest testing station. Tests are offered in Snohomish, Island, Skagit, San Juan and Whatcom counties.
Applicants must be at least 18 years old, have a Social Security number, be able to pass a background check and take a 30-minute test that measures knowledge, skills and abilities to handle a variety of census jobs.
Add 3.5 million promised jobs to the over 4 million jobs losses since the Stimulus bill, only off by about 8 million jobs, well at least there are plenty of applicants for "mostly...part-time workers who will start in late April or May"
I turned them down when they called me back to work. I worked last year and was so disgusted by being forced to map homes that I won’t work for them again. I cannot ask my neighbors to do things I refuse to do(answer intrusive questions). 10 years ago the process didn’t seem as dirty as this time.
10 years ago the process didn’t seem as dirty as this time.
The abuse that even the smoothest taking census workers face this year will be extreme!
I too, was a Census worker in 2000 (in a very poor rural area). There is no way I would do so in 2010. The experience provided many tales to retell and I did learn the geography in detail. There was a rapid attrition rate for census workers in 2000 and I can imagine it will be far greater this year.
I had no bad experiences in 2000. I enjoyed the whole thing. This time from day one of training I felt dirty and like I was betraying my friends and neighbors. Added to all that, I’m many years older than most of the kids training or overseeing my work and their attitudes were terrible. I have no patience for idiots any longer.
Why don’t we mamke people on welfare do this sort of work? They would be contributing, get used to working if only seasonally, and also be getting out of their living rooms and away from the big screen televisions.
A retired friend in the valley took the test. About 25 questions and you get a hour. Mostly critical thinking he said. Some math. He said mostly minorities were taking the test but that is probably because of the seasonal workers out of jobs and the feds enviromental smelt scam.
Social security card, driver's license, background check and DD 214 if you want a extra 5 points.
I am interested to see if he gets a position. Former IBM head in SF so he is not a dummie. Only two white men took the test. The girl who gave the test could not speak good english.
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