Census Bureau sees changing demographic - at hiring office

This wouldn't be the best week for a census taker to ask single mom Kim Chase about her job status.

"Yesterday was my first day of not working," Chase says. "It scared the crap out of me."

That's why the 33-year-old Mount Prospect woman spends her Wednesday morning taking the test to apply for a temporary job with the U.S. Census Bureau. Sitting in a room on the second floor of the Arlington Heights village hall, Chase fills in the dots on the 30-minute multiple-choice test. Questions range from clerical skills and map-reading to the calculator-free moment when testers have to multiply a three-digit number times a number with a decimal point.

Even with the tricky math portion, the Census Bureau has been drawing large turnouts at application tests throughout the suburbs.

"Crowds have been good, but we still need people," says Tina Verhelst, one of the bureau's assistant managers for recruiting. A businesswoman and former principal at Willows Academy in Des Plaines, the 58-year-old Park Ridge woman says she joined the bureau last summer because "the mission appealed to me."

"It is a major task, the recruiting - one of the largest peacetime operations the government undertakes," says Steve Laue, an information specialist for the bureau's regional office in Oak Brook, which oversees census operations in Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin.

Hundreds of thousands of temporary workers nationwide will be needed for the 2010 census, which collects population and demographic information that helps decide issues such as how many members of congress represent a state or what percent of $300 billion in government dollars go back to local communities.

"Ironically, the economy is meaning we are getting more applicants," Laue says.

To find out more about working for the 2010 Census, phone the toll-free jobs line at (866) 861-2010. Visit census.gov to learn about job requirements and testing locations. The job of a census taker pays around $17 an hour in the suburbs.

"I think this is a wonderful way for people who are looking for jobs to work while they are looking," Verhelst says.

"I've got to pay rent, and I keep getting my hours cut," says retail store employee and new census applicant Valerie Papuga, 20, of Arlington Heights.

"Everyone needs more money at this point," says her friend and fellow applicant Bridget Rogers, 20, of Arlington Heights.

Rogers works at a suburban bakery that just cut back hours for her and Chase.

"They cut my hours twice in the last two weeks," says Chase, who has a 17-year-old daughter. "I need to do something, anything I can."

While retirees often apply for census jobs, this recession brings out younger people looking for work.

Chase says she quit a couple part-time jobs to take a full-time job at a small business, only to be fired right before Christmas.

"I had four jobs two months ago. I was working 55 hours a week," says Chase. "Now I'm working one day a week, seven hours, and dog-walking."

The bureau attracts a lot of single parents and people with other jobs because the hours are flexible enough to work around other duties while generally allowing them to stay in their own neighborhoods, Verhelst notes.

That sounds good to Chase.

"The hardest part was accepting the fact that I'm not working. I'm a workaholic," Chase says with a shrug. "Whatever works. If this works - cool."