The U.S. Census Bureau has leased about 6,000 square feet of office space in West Columbia at 483 Sunset Boulevard, Suite 425. The office will open this fall.

The West Columbia office will support 2010 Census operations in the counties of Aiken, Edgefield, Lexington, Newberry, and Saluda and will employ about 1,100 office and field workers in the area. Those interested in census jobs will be able to apply in late fall 2009. Job openings, when available, will be posted at www.census. gov.

The West Columbia office is one of six new local census offices set to open in 2009 across South Carolina. Two temporary offices opened in 2008 to carry out operations to prepare for the census. They are located in Charleston and Columbia.

Census counts are used to determine the number of congressional seats for each state, the shape of legislative and local government districts, and how more than $400 billion in federal funds is distributed annually to communities across the country.

April 1, 2010, is Census Day, the reference day for collecting census information from every household in America. Census questionnaires will be mailed or delivered in mid- March. The West Columbia office will close after census operations end in 2010.