Census Forms--for Jobs--Pouring In

Despite low unemployment and past troubles with recruiting, the U.S. Census Bureau says it has found plenty of people willing to go door to door collecting information in Orange County.

Census officials said much of the success is due to the hourly pay rate of $14 in Orange and Los Angeles counties--up from $8 since the last census in 1990 when officials struggled to fill the jobs statewide.

“We are exuberant at the response we’re getting,” said Arnold Landau, who manages the bureau’s Fullerton office. “We couldn’t be happier that so many people are responding and doing so well. We expect to hit the streets with a full complement of people.”

The part- and full-time workers will begin knocking on doors at the end of April to help residents who did not mail their questionnaires or were unable to fill them out. The jobs will last three to six weeks.

Though census officials say they have found nearly enough people to fill about 10,000 jobs they expect to have in Orange County, positions are still available in the census offices in Santa Ana, Fullerton, Garden Grove, and Irvine.

Hiring will not begin until the end of April, when the Census Bureau determines how many people in each neighborhood failed to return their forms and how many enumerators are needed to contact them.

The workers are hired to persuade residents who do not return their forms that their responses are confidential and vital for the allotment of federal funds to their neighborhoods. To ease the task, which can be tough, enumerators are assigned to the communities in which they live. “We hire people from . . . the neighborhoods they will be working in,” said Joe Chavez, who manages the Irvine office. “Hopefully, the neighbors will recognize them and know them.”

The competitive pay may explain why turnout has been so good this year, said Kemble Worley, assistant manager of the census office that oversees Southern California and Hawaii. About 96% of the recruiting goal of 220,000 applicants has been met for the region--with more than a month left before hiring will start.

“We’re happy with it. We are getting a very good mix of ethnicities,” said Worley. “We’re ahead compared to 1990.”.

The pay “grabbed my attention,” acknowledged Sonia Canas of Los Angeles, who was taking the test Friday morning. “It’s a good reason to apply.”

Some hard-to-fill pockets remain in certain communities. These include largely industrial or commercial areas in Los Angeles County, for example, and high-income areas like Newport Beach and Santa Monica.

Enumerators take an aptitude test when then apply and are trained for three days when hired. In the training sessions, enumerators learn to fill out the forms correctly, read a map and conduct interviews.

“We also teach them to be sensitive to the people they are dealing with,” Landau said. “Not everyone is ecstatic or happy to fill out the form. We tell people to respect a person’s right to privacy.”

In training workers to deal with different populations, “a lot of it is common sense, like respecting elders, being polite, not being pushy,” Worley said. Trainees will also learn how to deal with different cultural situations, like knowing which ethnic groups might be intimidated by direct eye contact and when a bow is customary, he said.

Areas where immigrants live can be challenging because of a lack of trust in government, said Jackie Negrete, the Garden Grove recruiting manager.

“They see something with the U.S. government on it and they’re apprehensive,” Negrete said. “People are very apprehensive about giving out personal information. They want to know who is going to see the form and what it’s going to be used for.”

Workers are told to back off, however, if respondents refuse to cooperate.

In general, the questions deal with race and ethnicity, age and the number of people living in a household. Some selected at random will receive a longer form that includes questions about income, jobs, cars owned and mortgage amounts. Federal laws guarantee that respondents are not identified for 72 years to anyone other than census workers.

Because the bureau does not allow employees to carry weapons for protection, enumerators in unsafe neighborhoods will work in daylight or go in pairs, Negrete said.

“That’s pretty rare,” she said. “In Orange County, we haven’t had situations where somebody’s personal safety was threatened. Orange County is generally considered a safe environment.”

Information on becoming a census enumerator: (800) 325-7733.