Pros
The Decennial Census is a count of all people in the United States performed every ten years as required by law and performed by the Census Bureau (part of the Commerce Department). Almost all positions to perform and manage the census are temporary part time and consist of field or office work. Most of the office positions are temporary full time while the field positions tend to be temporary part time. The clerk position is a temporary full time position performing general administrative tasks such as filing, generation of products (forms, maps, checklists) necessary to perform the census or products necessary to hire other workers, recruitment of workers, and payroll tasks (time sheet data entry, weekly payroll generation, etc). All of the tasks are necessary to perform the census and an accurate census is necessary to properly apportion federal, state, and local benefits on the basis of population. The number of US Representatives per state is determined by the census. Such questions as "How many {hospitals, post offices, unemployment offices, etc. etc.} do we need?" require accurate population statistics to answer and it is the job of the Census Bureau through the ten-year Decennial census and more frequent population surveys to produce such statistics.
Cons
The large numbers of jobs created by the Decennial census are temporary and only occur every ten years. The number of permanent jobs necessary to perform the ongoing counts and statistical determination is much smaller. The ad-hoc nature of the Decennial census does not provide for any kind of an environment where process improvement or documentation can be performed or is desired.
