Census Bureau offering temp jobs for 2020 count in region

Some 500 individuals in Allegheny County are needed this year to do “address canvassing,” the process of verifying the residences and group quarters settings that exist on every street.

Every 10 years, a new round of hiring emerges for hundreds of area residents desiring shortterm, part-time work with better pay than that offered by the retail and restaurant industries, and the U.S. Census Bureau — a virtual industry unto itself — is gearing up to do it again.

The federal bureau, in preparation for the official census population count of April 2020, is urging U.S. citizens 18 and older to visit the hiring section of its website now to apply for any of as many as 500,000 positions to be filled this year and next.

Some 500 individuals in Allegheny County are needed this year to do “address canvassing,” the process of verifying the residences and group quarters settings that exist on every street, said Roxanne Wallace, the assistant regional census manager for the Pittsburgh region. Perhaps twice as many will be needed in 2020 as the “enumerators” assigned to visit residences from which no timely census response was received, she said.

“Everyone is the right kind of person” for the work, Ms. Wallace said. “For some people, this could be their first step in the door working for the federal government. … We’re trying to recruit people ready, willing and able to work and give back to the country and community. They’ll be trusted ambassadors who know their community

and can help have people engage.”

In Allegheny County, the normal pay will be $18.50 an hour, with people generally able to work the number of hours they want and shape schedules around other commitments, such as school or other jobs, Ms. Wallace said.

The federal government attempts to account for every individual every 10 years. By April 2020, the U.S. population likely will have grown by about 20 million since 309 million individuals were counted in the 2010 census. The information is used for determining congressional representation, federal funding and other purposes.

For the first time, next year’s census will offer people options to provide information online or by phone, instead of relying only on mailed submissions. Even so, a percentage of the population will ignore or avoid responding voluntarily, leading to several months of door-knocking by the temporary census workers in the spring of 2020.

For now, the local area’s census planning is being done out of a central office in Philadelphia, but Ms. Wallace said a regional office responsible for a broad swath of Western Pennsylvania will be established in Cranberry by April and a Pittsburgh office specifically for Allegheny County will open in the fall. About 40 supervisory and clerical staff will be needed in each office, and hiring also is being done currently for those positions.

A few aspects rule out potential hires, Ms. Wallace said. Those going online provide information about their educational and work history and are asked other questions in a format likely to take up 30 minutes.

The information is processed in a way that those deemed most qualified from their online responses receive follow-up phone interviews. Applicants are expected to undergo a criminal background check, although a conviction, depending on the timing and nature, does not disqualify an applicant automatically.

For many but not all positions, a personal vehicle is required. Some computer skills are necessary — much of the census field work will be done on iPhones given to employees — but Ms. Wallace stressed that training is provided to all hires.

She said job offers are expected to go out over the next few months for most of the work being done this year.

More information is available at the census.gov website and at local job fairs where census recruiters will be present, including one that will be held from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Feb. 28 at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel in North Strabane.