Census jobs boost economy

The PG's Elwin Green brings us the story of Mike Jones, a South Fayette resident who's also a microcosm of a Census labor force unsure of what's next. The decennial US Census also gives a boost to unemployment figures -- and the gain was especially needed this past year. But what happens after everyone's counted?


By Elwin Green
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
June 29, 2010

For Mike Jones of South Fayette the 2010 Census has been more than a decennial ritual conducted by the federal government. It has been a much-needed break from a spell of unemployment.

Mr. Jones, 27, was let go from his job as municipal and state government reporter for the Washington Observer-Reporter a year ago. He began working in March, and still works, with the Beaver Falls office of the Census Bureau as a group quarters enumerator, tallying residents of hospitals, group homes and the like.

In so doing, he joined an army of temporary workers that signed on with the bureau in a hiring blitz that added 48,000 jobs to the nation's economy in March, 66,000 in April and 411,000 in May -- more than 95 percent of all jobs added that month, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Now those jobs have begun to disappear.

Read more about my census job...