Upcoming Census Hiring Set to Boost Jobs Reports By Over Half a Million

WASHINGTON, Feb. 19, 2010— -- Temporary help is on the way for the country's battered job market, thanks to the upcoming U.S. Census.

According to a new study released today by the Commerce Department, which includes the Census Bureau the survey will add up to 635,000 temporary jobs by May to the nation's employment reports.

The study also predicts that Census Bureau hiring will cause the country's unemployment rate to drop by several-tenths of a percentage point this spring. Census spending, the report also forecasts, will boost the nation's gross domestic product by 1/10 of a percentage point during the first quarter of this year and by 2/10 of a percentage point during the second quarter.

"The Census has a very positive effect on the economy," Rebecca Blank, Under Secretary for Economic Affairs at the Commerce Department, said in an interview with ABC News. "And the hope, of course, is that this is going to be hitting just as the prime economic growth and employment are picking up, so that it will help that acceleration."

In all, the Census Bureau is hiring about 1.2 million temporary workers this year, with 800,000 of those people coming onboard in April and May. Due to the short-term nature of these jobs, not all of them will show up in the Labor Department's employment reports, but the $14.7 billion once-a-decade project is still poised to provide a big boost – albeit temporarily – to a nation currently grappling with a 9.7 unemployment rate.

"With the unemployment rate expected to be well above those witnessed during the previous Census," the report says, "the effect of large changes in temporary 2010 Census employment on the unemployment rate may be more noticeable in 2010."

However some analysts are preaching caution.

"With the government set to create some one million temp jobs to conduct the 2010 Census in the next few months, it's hard to see how job growth won't resume soon," Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Economy.com, noted recently. "Yet there are reasons to be nervous that job growth won't revive in earnest or may even peter out after Census temp jobs fade this summer."