U.S. Payrolls Counts Poised for Boost From 50,000 Census Hires

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The U.S. Census Bureau has selected and started training about 50,000 temporary hires for the 2020 population count, with those workers poised to start showing up in the government's monthly payrolls tallies as early as Friday's report for July.

Government efforts to survey about 50 million addresses will be the first major field operation for the decennial tally and be complete in the first week of October, according to Tim Olson, the bureau's associate director for field operations.

How soon these additions are reflected in the monthly payrolls reports depends on when the census takers start work or first get paid. The Labor Department's survey of establishments counts workers as employed if they worked or received pay for any part of the reference period, which includes the 12th of each month.

Thus, a bump up in government employment due to census hiring could begin showing up in Friday's jobs report for July or on Sept. 6, when the Labor Department issues August data. Census officials will release more details on field operation progress on Aug. 12, but it's already clear that the surge in hiring will have much more room to run next year.

As of Wednesday, about 546,000 Americans had applied for 2020 positions, more than double the bureau's goal, Olson said in an interview. The bureau said in March that more than 170,000 recruits had applied for temporary jobs and more than 800 had been hired.

Back in 2010, government payrolls surged by almost 600,000 in the year through May. By September, they fell back to around previous levels. There was a similar trend around the count in 2000, when employment temporarily jumped by almost 500,000 before reverting a few months later.

If history's any guide, that means the bulk of census hiring will be next year, when the bureau plans to hire about 500,000 temporary workers from a projected pool of 2.3 million applicants. Olson says selection for those positions will begin in March, with the bulk of their work taking place from late April through early July.

To contact the reporter on this story: Reade Pickert in Washington at epickert@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Scott Lanman at slanman@bloomberg.net, Jeff Kearns, Vince Golle

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