Census workers topped 550,000 in mid-May

[Apparition]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Census said on Wednesday it had 573,779 workers on its payroll in mid-May, suggesting a huge boost in Friday's U.S. employment report.

The agency hired hundreds of thousands of temporary workers to help with the once-a-decade Census, and economists have been expecting that to provide a large, if short-lived, lift to the still-suffering U.S. job market.

It was not clear exactly how those jobs would be counted in Friday's closely watched U.S. employment report for May. Economists polled by Reuters forecast an overall gain of 513,000, including a sizable contribution from Census hiring.

Excluding government hiring, analysts were looking for a gain of 190,000 jobs in May.

Normally, the Labor Department bases its employment figure on payrolls in the week that includes the 12th of the month.

For that week in April, Census reported 156,335 people on its payroll, but the Labor Department listed 66,000 Census-related jobs in its April report.

(For the Census hiring data, see http://2010.census.gov/news/releases/jobs/temp-workers.html)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100602/us_nm/us_usa_economy_census

Gee, I wonder what percentage of the new "jobs" data consists of these good ol' Census jobs. ::)

[Fudup]

I know someone who got one of those "census" jobs. She did it because she hasn't found work in over a year and needed the currency to fund her eating habit. Politically, she is oblivious, she is just thankful for any work.

[Ares]

I keep getting calls from the census wanting to talk to my wife, and they ask when they can talk to her. (she filled out the form with her name) she left my name off of it, and just said I lived there. She won't give them my name, but they keep calling. Surprised I haven't seen a census worker come knocking at the door yet.

She usually hands the phone over to me, and I tell them I refuse. And that the form was filled out as required. Number of people living there. Usually hang up after that.