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Census Bureau to begin local hiring

By Julian J. Ramos/Staff Writer

About 1,000 jobs in Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties are waiting to be filled as the local office of the U.S. Census Bureau prepares for the 2010 tally of people living in America.

From January to March, the temporary jobs are expected to pay between $15.50 and $17 per hour, according to officials from the Santa Maria Local Census Office, the hub of operations for the two counties as the Census Bureau prepares for and begins the once-a-decade count of the nation’s population.

Depending on the work load and the project, hours could be up to 40 per week, said Amy Allen-Lopez, assistant manager of field operations at the Santa Maria Census office.

The jobs will be mostly in the Field Operations department to follow up on people who do not respond to the questionnaire form, Allen-Lopez said Monday in a meeting of the local Complete Count Committee at the Santa Maria Public Library. Other jobs will be in the Quality Assurance section.

A census is mandated every 10 years by the Constitution. In 2010, Census Day is scheduled for April 1.

Applicants must take a written, multiple-choice test as part of the screening to make hiring decisions.

A workshop to prepare for the test is scheduled from 1:30 to 3 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 17, at the Atkinson Community Center, 1000 N. Railroad Ave. in Santa Maria. To reserve a spot, call 1-866-861-2010. For more information, visit http://2010.census.gov.

Those hired will be paid for their training and receive reimbursement for mileage while on the job.

In particular, bilingual applicants are wanted.

The Santa Maria office is one of a dozen offices in the Census Bureau’s Los Angeles region, which includes 19 Southern California counties, Hawaii, Guam, American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands.

Among other things, the census is used to determine how many members are sent from each state to the U.S. House of Representatives, and the amount of federal money apportioned regionally. Every person counted is valued at around $2,000 per year in funding received by local governments, Allen-Lopez said.

“It’s important everyone gets counted,“ Allen-Lopez said.

Challenges in getting a complete count include reaching people in rural areas, convincing the public that the process is safe, and convincing people that their information won’t be shared with other government agencies such as the IRS or Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said Maria Dupras, manager of the Santa Maria Local Census Office.

A new questionnaire form, 10 questions, is meant to be simpler than in the past, and should take about 10 to 15 minutes to complete, officials said.

One of the initial tasks for more than 600 census takers — also known as enumerators — was address canvassing, a survey of living quarters in the region.

The addresses will be used by the U.S. Postal Service to send out the questionnaire in March 2010, according to a Census 2010 timeline.