IBGE opens selection process for census takers in 17 states

After thousands of census takers who were hired to work on the 2022 Demographic Census had dropped out, the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) announced the opening of a new selection process to fill 6,606 temporary vacancies to work in collecting information in the field.

The Complementary Simplified Selection Process also offers 253 vacancies for municipal census agents and supervisory census agents.

Registration is open until next Monday (29). This time, the selection will not have the application of a test or payment of the registration fee.

Under complaints of late payments, census takers hired by the IBGE to collect the census have mobilized for a national strike starting on September 1st for better working conditions.

Workers have been expressing themselves on the official social networks of the agency about the problems faced and calling other colleagues for the strike.

Asked by the report about the reason for the delay in releasing payments, the IBGE replied that the explanation “is of an operational nature”, “it is not a cash problem”.

“The IBGE is aware of a mobilization of census takers,” the institute replied to Broadcast (Grupo Estado’s real-time news system), in a note, on the 24th.

“The Institute is committed to extinguishing delays in payments through changes and simplifications in the processes, which will be announced shortly. IBGE reaffirms its commitment and responsibility to honor its obligations to properly remunerate all those who have been working in the census operation”, he added.

The selection of new temporary workers will occur through the analysis of qualifications, such as diplomas or certificates of completion of elementary, secondary or higher education courses.

Candidate for census taker must have completed elementary school.

The functions of municipal census agent and supervisory census agent require a high school diploma.

There are opportunities for census takers in 17 states: Alagoas, Acre, Bahia, Ceará, Espírito Santo, Goiás, Maranhão, Minas Gerais, Mato Grosso, Mato Grosso do Sul, Pará, Paraná, Rio de Janeiro, Rondônia, São Paulo, Santa Catarina and Tocantins. The vacancies of census agents are distributed in 16 states: Acre, Amazonas, Ceará, Espírito Santo, Goiás, Maranhão, Minas Gerais, Mato Grosso, Mato Grosso do Sul, Pará, Paraná, Rio de Janeiro, Rondônia, São Paulo, Santa Catarina and Tocantins.

The monthly remuneration of municipal census agents will be R$ 2,100, while the role of supervisory census agent has a salary of R$ 1,700, both for a workload of 40 hours per week.

The census takers, responsible for applying the census questionnaires in Brazilian households, are paid based on productivity, with a requirement that they work at least 25 hours per week.

“All those hired will receive food allowance, transportation allowance and pre-school allowance, as well as proportional vacations and 13th salary”, says the IBGE.

The estimated duration of the census taker’s contract is up to three months, while in the census agent’s functions it extends for up to five months.

The agency stresses, however, that the contracts can be extended.

Those interested in the selection must go to one of the IBGE registration offices to deliver the completed and signed registration form. More information about public notice and registration is available on the IBGE website.

The IBGE released a public apology to census takers, in a post on its social networks last Tuesday, 23.

In the publication, the institute recognizes the delay in the payment of training and mobility aid and also the delay in releasing the payment of the collection work.

“We appreciate the commitment and dedication of all census takers with the #Censo2022 and apologize for the delay in releasing payment for the collection work and inconvenience caused by the delay in payment of training and mobility aid. Soon, we will inform you about changes and adjustments in the payment processes”, says the text of the post on the official IBGE profile on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

The body also guarantees that it is committed to reducing payment deadlines.

According to the institute, the resources requested until August 18 to cover travel and daily expenses have already been regularized, but there are still open demands regarding the reimbursement of the daily allowance promised for the training time of the temporary workers, which took place about of a month.

In less than 24 hours, the Instagram post had already received 1,938 comments, most with complaints about late payment for work and conflicting compensation amounts per questionnaire.

The dissatisfaction generated the mobilization of census takers for a national strike until late payments are brought up to date.

However, workers also demand, among other issues, greater transparency in the calculation of productivity compensation and greater publicity and partnership between the institute and local governments so that workers have less difficulty in being received by the population in their homes.

“The amount foreseen, approved and guaranteed in the Union Budget is available. It’s not a cash problem, it’s an operational problem, which requires changes and simplifications in the processes, which will be released soon”, guaranteed the statistical agency, in a note to Broadcast.

Last week, IBGE informed Broadcast that it had terminated 6,550 contracts of temporary workers recruited for the 2022 Demographic Census.

The withdrawal of workers occurred amid delays in payments, but also reports of aggression and hostility against census takers by residents who were supposed to provide information for the census survey.

The agency reported that the terminations represented 4.7% of the total number of contractors, “a number within the forecast” and “without risk to the operation”.

“About 160,000 census takers were hired. Today, another 10,000 are in training”, informed the IBGE to Broadcast on Wednesday.

As for the possible impacts of the difficulties in collecting on the Census schedule, the IBGE states that the current period of field operation is from August 1st to October 31st. “The Institute does not speculate about extension”, he declared.

The census takers have been in the field since August 1, collecting information for the Demographic Census in all of the approximately 75 million Brazilian homes, in the country’s 5,570 municipalities.

This work started with an estimated deficit of 15 thousand interviewers, which the IBGE was still trying to recruit to reach the ideal number of 183 thousand temporary employees.

Held every ten years, the Demographic Census should have taken place in 2020, but was postponed due to the pandemic.

The lack of allocation of funds by the federal government was also an obstacle.

In 2021, the budget did not bring the necessary resources to conduct the Census, which ended up being canceled again, but this time under a determination by the Federal Supreme Court (STF) to take place in 2022.

The census operation was initially budgeted by the IBGE technical team at more than BRL 3 billion to go into the field in 2020.

Amid pressure from the government to reduce the budget, the original questionnaires were dried up, and the budget shrunk to R$ 2.3 billion.

In 2021, the amount of just R$53 million in the budget sanctioned by President Jair Bolsonaro made even the preparations unfeasible.

Later, after the decision of the STF, the IBGE managed to secure a supplementary budget for the preparatory work in 2021 and the budget for the collection in 2022.

The IBGE civil servants union defends a new budget complementation to ensure the resources for a quality collection.

In the midst of a scenario of pressured inflation, with rising fuel costs, the possibility of a new contribution of resources was even defended by the IBGE Research Director, Cimar Azeredo, but the agency later refuted this option, publicly stating that the funds already requested and obtained from the federal budget were sufficient to guarantee the operation.

Regarding the cases of aggression and hostility reported by census takers, the IBGE informed that the state units are oriented to forward the occurrences to the security agencies and provide medical and social support to the hired worker.

“The IBGE’s recommendation to census takers is initially to file a police report with the police and communicate it to the coordinator or supervisor for appropriate measures,” the institute said in a note last week.

The statistical agency also recalled that agents, researchers or census takers are federal public servants and that “crimes against them are subject to federal investigations based on art. 144, § 1, inc. I, of the Constitution of the Federative Republic of Brazil”.

“The same article. 144 applies when someone pretends to be an IBGE agent, census taker or researcher. In all cases, the offender is subject to penalties provided for by law.

On the IBGE website, a tool allows residents to confirm whether the interviewer who presented himself as a census taker is actually hired by the statistical agency.

Simply enter the registration number that appears on the interviewer’s badge. The temporary worker’s CPF or RG numbers are also accepted in the online verification process.