Staff reports

The U.S. Census Bureau is seeking applicants to fill management positions in 10 local census offices scheduled to open this fall in North Carolina to support 2010 Census operations. The new offices will be located in Asheboro, Boone, Concord, Durham, Gastonia, Hickory, Raleigh, Rocky Mount, Wilmington and Winston-Salem. Applicants must live within a specified geographical area surrounding each local office. For this and other information about the jobs, applicants can go to www.census.gov/rocha/www/2010emply.html.

 Job candidates must be U.S. citizens, reside in the area where the local office will be located, clear a FBI background check, pass a written management test, complete the application process, and address the evaluation criteria listed in the job announcement.

 Five early local census offices opened late last year in Asheville, Charlotte, Fayetteville, Greensboro and Greenville to build an address list for the 2010 Census. The address list will be used to mail or deliver census questionnaires next March.

 “These are important jobs offering competitive pay,” said William W. Hatcher, regional director of the Charlotte Regional Census Center, which supports 2010 Census operations in North Carolina and four other states. “The new local census offices will be responsible for counting everyone in the state so that everyone counts when it comes to the positive things that follow the census.”

 Census results are used to determine the number of congressional seats for each state, the shape of legislative and local government districts, and how $300 billion in federal funds is distributed annually to communities across America.

 The full-time, temporary jobs at each of the 10 new local census offices include these management positions: local census office manager, assistant manager for field operations, assistant manager for recruiting, assistant manager for administration, assistant manager for quality assurance and assistant manager for technology. Pay for the census management jobs ranges from $17.00 to $33.50 per hour, depending on position and location.

Currently, address listers are combing the streets of North Carolina to update the address lists that will be used to mail or deliver 2010 Census questionnaires next year. The address listing operation began April 6. Address listers use handheld computers that capture GPS information as they knock on doors to verify an address and ask about additional living quarters on the premises.

Census workers can be identified by their official U.S. Census Bureau badges or by calling a local census office: Asheville (828) 239-1130; Charlotte (704) 644-6200; Fayetteville (910) 221-6270; Greensboro (336) 517-3130 and Greenville (252) 493-7020. Census workers never ask for bank account numbers or social security numbers. Census employees take an oath of confidentiality and can face a fine of up to $250,000 and five years in prison for violating that oath.

 April 1, 2010, is Census Day, the reference date for collecting census information. For more information, fact sheets and multimedia visit www.census.gov. All information collected by the U.S. Census Bureau is confidential by law (Title 13, U.S. Code, Section 9).