Does the Census Bureau Need a Census to Count Its Own Employees?

On Tuesday, May 4, 2010, the Director of the U.S. Census Bureau sent a welcome memo addressed to the part-time workers his agency had allegedly hired to complete the 2010 Census. He referred the memo to his “600,000 new colleagues,” whom he called “the heart of the operations for the second half of the census” and “the face of the US Federal government.”

On Friday, May 7, the U.S. Department of Labor released its latest official monthly jobs report, which noted that “Federal government employment was up in April, reflecting the hiring of 66,000 temporary workers for the decennial census.” This followed prior DOL reports of Census hiring in March(48,000), February(15,000), and January(9,000). Even if all those “temporary” Census workers hired as early as January were still on the job on May 4 when the Director sent his”welcome” note, the official data through April suggests the Census Bureau has hired 138,000 temporary workers this year, not 600,000.

Where are the other 462,000?

Were they hired on Saturday, May 1, Sunday, May 2, and Monday, May 3? If so, does that reflect the biggest surge in hiring for a 3-day period in world history, mostly falling on a weekend, no less? We’ll have to wait for the May jobs report, released on June 4, to know for sure.