ORLANDO, Fla. — The federal government has a huge “Help Wanted” sign up right now. The U.S. Census Bureau is looking to hire hundreds of thousands of people in the next few months to work on the 2020 Census.

Central Florida is growing rapidly, with around 1,000 people moving to the area each week.

When you have a region growing so quickly, you need a lot of people to get an accurate count for the census.

“We need them in the hundreds,” said Jackie Colon, Southeast Regional Director for the NALEO (National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials) Fund, which helps facilitate Latino participation in American politics.

She and her team are in Los Angeles getting training for the 2020 U.S. Census.

“We’re talking about trillions of dollars that come into our state when it comes to the census,” Colon said.

She says her group wants to help the U.S. Census Bureau fill those hundreds of thousands of jobs so they can count as many people as possible.

Director of the Census Bureau Steven Dillingham reiterated this point on a visit to Orlando earlier this week.

“We’re going to be hiring almost a half-million people, so we need people out there to help us,” Dillingham said.

Colon says they want to make sure the ones counting actually live in those areas.

“So you feel more comfortable to answer these important questions,” Colon said.

And there’s a large demand for bilingual workers.

“Our communities in Central Florida speak Spanish and English, but we are really doing an outreach for everyone in our community, not just for Hispanics,” Colon said.

But with so many workers needed, being bilingual is not a requirement, and with flexible hours and $19.50 an hour, Colon says this could be just what some Central Florida families need — especially those who are unemployed or paid low wages.

The Census Bureau start officially hiring in January, but thousands have already applied. The work will start in March.

You can call NALEO’s hotline to find out more information about qualifications at 888-839-8682. Or you can call the Census Bureau's hotline at 1-855-562-2020 or go to 2020census.gov/jobs to apply.