ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — The U.S. Census Bureau said it has reached its goal of recruiting more than 2.6 million applicants for the once-a-decade head count that launched for most of America this week — but it has been a bumpy road getting there.

The nation's abundance of jobs has complicated the effort, and some rural areas — particularly in New England, Appalachia and some Rocky Mountain states — are falling behind recruitment goals as the agency works to hire up to a half-million temporary workers before May. Falling short could threaten the count in some parts of the country, which in turn could lead to underrepresentation in Congress and less federal funding.

An analysis by The Associated Press shows how low unemployment has affected the bureau's ability to attract workers, with urban counties, especially large ones, more likely to hit recruitment goals than rural areas.

While the bureau has reached its recruiting goal nationally, hiring has varied widely from place to place. States with populations concentrated in large metro areas — Georgia, Illinois, Maryland and Nevada — have overrecruited. Mostly rural states with high numbers of older residents — Vermont, Maine, New Hampshire and West Virginia — are well below recruitment goals.

If the bureau can't find enough applicants in those areas, “it may have difficulty hiring enough staff to complete upcoming operations, leading to delays, increased costs and eroded data quality," J. Christopher Mihm of the Government Accountability Office said during a congressional hearing last month.

“Recruitment and hiring success in one area may provide little advantage to an area where efforts are lagging," Mihm said. “The census, while a national effort, is implemented locally in communities and neighborhoods across the country."

Most of the workers will be hired to knock on the doors of households whose residents haven't responded by May to the census either online, by telephone or through the mail in what is the federal government's largest peacetime mobilization. The Census Bureau hopes to hire people from the areas they will be working in because they know their communities best.

In Vermont, part of the problem is the number of jobs. Its unemployment rate was just 2.4% at the end of 2019.

"Vermont is a rural, small state, and I know we have one of the lowest unemployment rates in the nation," said state librarian Jason Broughton, who is chairing a committee on encouraging census participation. "That plays a huge factor. A lot of people already are working two or three jobs, so everybody is already working."

The extremes in recruiting can be found in Teton County, Wyoming — home of the Jackson Hole ski area — and Clayton County, Georgia, in metro Atlanta, home of the world's busiest airport. In Teton County, the Census Bureau reached below 17% of its recruiting goal as of Feb. 24. In Clayton County, home to Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, the bureau had recruited more than double its goal.

Census Bureau officials insist there's no reason to be concerned. As of the end of February, there were more than 22,500 temporary workers on the payroll, the bureau reported last week. It has yet to account for how hiring could be affected by coronavirus concerns, which may dampen workers' enthusiasm for going door to door.

There are at least three recruits for every position in every part of the country, and in some parts, there are four or five applicants, Census Bureau Director Steven Dillingham told lawmakers last month.

“We are not behind," Dillingham said.

Most Americans could start answering questions this week for the 2020 census, which helps determine the allocation of $1.5 trillion in federal spending and how many congressional seats each state gets. For the first time, the bureau is encouraging most people to fill out their forms online.

Finding such a large, temporary workforce in the current labor market had been a formidable challenge, U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, whose department oversees the Census Bureau, testified before a Senate committee last week. But he said the bureau had reached out to college students, previous census-takers and private companies like Walmart that have a large number of temporary workers.

“I feel quite comfortable that we will accomplish what we need to," Ross said.

After recruiting efforts hit a plateau last December, the Census Bureau increased its hourly wages by around $1.50 in almost three-quarters of U.S. counties. The hourly wages now range from $14 to almost $30 an hour, depending on the city, with workers in California, Chicago and the Northeast earning the most.

U.S. Reps. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Deb Haaland of New Mexico told Census Bureau officials last month that residents had applied for jobs but never heard back. The two Democrats worried that recruiting and hiring problems would lead to undercounting of hard-to-count communities in their districts, which both have large numbers of minority groups.

That concern was echoed on a recent conference call the bureau hosted to answer questions about the 2020 census. Several callers wanted to know why they hadn't heard anything after they applied for a temporary job.

"I'm concerned that maybe I'm getting waylaid and nobody is really paying attention," said one caller from South Florida.

The Census Bureau says the bulk of the hiring wouldn't start until this month. Kaile Bower, the bureau official who led the conference call, urged callers to follow up by reaching out to their regional office.

In New Mexico, the recruiting shortfall seems most drastic in Hispanic communities and Indian country, Haaland said.

“Those I would say largely are rural communities where the unemployment rate is higher, so I almost feel like that would be a great place to find people," she said.

Dillingham, the bureau's director, promised to ensure those communities are properly staffed.

“It is very important that we meet the needs of particular states and particular communities within those states," he said.

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Kastanis reported from Los Angeles.

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