Census Bureau raises pay to lure workers

ORLANDO, Fla. — Faced with a tight labor market, U.S. Census Bureau officials said Thursday that they plan to raise wages for census workers in some areas and make it easier for applicants to get fingerprinted for background checks.

Bureau officials told members of the National Advisory Committee on Racial, Ethnic and Other Populations that low unemployment was making it challenging in some communities as the bureau pushes to hire up to 500,000 temporary workers needed to survey households during next year’s census.

The bureau encountered higher-than-expected levels of dropout and no-show rates that officials blamed on inconvenient fingerprint locations, inadequate follow-up with applicants and noncompetitive wages in rural areas, said Albert Fontenot, an associate director at the bureau.

For the next wave of hiring, the bureau will increase wages by $1.50 an hour in some places and allow applicants to get fingerprinted at post offices. The pay for the parttime work currently ranges from $13.50 to $30 an hour. The bureau so far has 1 million applicants but is hoping to get another 1.7 million people applying for the temporary jobs, bureau officials said.