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As the government attempts to bring forth practical measures to promote the health of the U.S. job market, one agency has announced that it plans to take a much more proactive approach: hire about 1.2 million new employees.

Officials at the U.S. Census Bureau have said that they are looking to fill more than 1 million part-time positions in preparation for the government's tally of the country's population, which occurs once every 10 years, CNN.com reports.

The majority of the available jobs are for enumerators, who will go door to door collecting information from an expected 35 million households that will not return their Census forms by mail.

"The numbers who are applying are just phenomenal," Census director Robert Groves told the news source.

As part of the application process, candidates must complete a 28-question test. Accepted applicants will attend four days of training on interviewing, personal safety and the history of the Census, which is used, in part, by government officials to determine congressional districts and allocate about $400 billion in federal funding.

Though the positions only pay between $10 and $25 per hour, the steadily high unemployment rate has made the job openings attractive to many workers.

"We're getting a lot of people who are professionals, people who have been laid off from the large companies, people with master's degrees and higher education," Lillie Eng-Hirt, a manager at the Census office in Memphis, Tennessee, said to CNN.

The agency is looking to hire enumerators for work in the communities where they live, hoping to save money on transportation costs. Though individuals have applied in droves, the Census reported having trouble filling positions in inner cities, rural areas and neighborhoods in which most residents do not speak English.

The Census Bureau has 12 Regional Offices located in Atlanta, Boston, Charlotte, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Kansas City, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia and Seattle.