Census workers topped 550,000 in mid-May

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Census said on Wednesday it had 573,779 workers on its payroll in mid-May, suggesting a huge boost in Friday's U.S. employment report.

The agency hired hundreds of thousands of temporary workers to help with the once-a-decade Census, and economists have been expecting that to provide a large, if short-lived, lift to the still-suffering U.S. job market.

It was not clear exactly how those jobs would be counted in Friday's closely watched U.S. employment report for May. Economists polled by Reuters forecast an overall gain of 513,000, including a sizable contribution from Census hiring.

Excluding government hiring, analysts were looking for a gain of 190,000 jobs in May.

Normally, the Labor Department bases its employment figure on payrolls in the week that includes the 12th of the month.

For that week in April, Census reported 156,335 people on its payroll, but the Labor Department listed 66,000 Census-related jobs in its April report.

(For the Census hiring data, see http://2010.census.gov/news/releases/jobs/temp-workers.html)

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