Iowa has the nation’s best response rate for the U.S. Census Bureau and officials with that agency hope to maintain the stellar numbers. Hiring is now underway for thousands of Census workers at several locations in the state, according to Kelly Campbell, manager of the Census office in Des Moines.
“We’ll hire approximately a thousand people for each office,” Campbell says. “There’s five offices in the state of Iowa: Cedar Rapids, Waterloo, Sioux City, Ames and Des Moines, so roughly about five-thousand people.” Campbell says they’re putting together the office staffs now and will start the big hiring push soon.
The recruiting process is underway now for the five Iowa offices, he says, while the bulk of the hiring will start in January and go into April. Campbell says they’re looking for help from all sorts of Iowans in all areas of the state, suburban and rural.
“We give everybody that wants to be a Census employee a test,” Campbell says. “It’s 28 questions. It’s general knowledge. If you’d like to take a practice test before you come and take the actual test, you can go to the website which is “2010censusjobs.gov” and click on practice test.” With so many people out of work, he’s hopeful for a wide array of applicants.
The pay range for Iowa goes from $9 an hour up to $16.75. “That’s some very good wages for a part-time, temporary job,” Campbell says. For more information, call toll-free, 866-861-2010 and enter your ZIP code to be sent to the nearest office.