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About 1,700 temporary jobs have become available in Eastern Washington, thanks to the U.S. Census Bureau.
The bureau has opened an office in Kennewick to coordinate hiring and ensure the 2010 census is carried out smoothly in a nine-county area of the state.
Tri-Citians will be able to apply for at least 200 of those jobs, Hawley said, for both office and field positions. "We want people who are willing to work and live where they want to work."
The operations will include sending out questionnaires to households in the 20,500-square-mile area, from Chelan County to Klickitat County, and from Douglas County to Walla Walla County, knocking at the doors of those who don't respond, and ultimately sending completed forms to the National Processing Center, said Jim Hawley, who's in charge of the local operation.
The bureau will hire employees for various short-term operations that run through September.
There's no education requirement, but applicants need to be at least 18. They must be comfortable dealing with the public and pass a background check and a 30-question basic knowledge test, Hawley said.
Wages start at $9 for office workers and $11.75 for field workers. Field workers also will be paid 55 cent a mile for gas.
Work will involve short-term tasks, and good workers will be rehired, Hawley said, adding that some may be able to work up to 400 hours during the project. The bureau also is looking for bi-lingual workers.
The job is as much about getting a paycheck as about helping fulfill a constitutional requirement to count the people of every country every 10 years, said Hawley of Ellensburg. He first began working for the Census Bureau as an enumerator in 1998, three years after he retired as a school teacher. In 2000, he was operations manager for the 2000 Census in Richland, where he taught school in the late 1960s.
Hawley said he hopes more people take the time to return the questionnaires that'll mailed to them beginning in March. In the last census, the response rate was 60 percent.
If more people return the forms, their communities will have a better chance of getting a larger share of federal money, he said, which is often allocated by population.
The data collected by the Census Bureau kept is kept confidential for 72 years, though the statistics are used for different studies and analyses by government agencies to fund programs including community housing and education, he said.
The bureau is looking for only basic information from residents such as name, date of birth and ethnic and racial background, Hawley said.
That information becomes a potential gold mine later for those doing genealogical research once the information gets into the public domain, he said.
The new forms are simple and can be filled out within 10 minutes.
Census jobs are interesting and challenging, Hawley said. "There are deadlines to be met."
That's why he's casting a wider net to find suitable workers. Recruiters are out in the nine communities, he said. "We also have posted the information at WorkSource."
To learn more about census job openings, potential applicants can call 866-861-2010 or 737-6100, or go to http://2010.census.gov/2010census.
