Less than half of households have been interviewed as part of Census 2010 despite Government's pledge to have the count completed today.

That is according to a census worker who wants Government to push forward and get the project done.

At the end of last month, Government statistician Steven Holdipp said 11,200 households — 37 percent of the Island's total — had been visited by census workers.

Census 2010 began May 20 with between 300 and 500 workers tasked with interviewing residents. That number had decreased to 220 last month, Government said.

Yesterday Statistics director Valerie Robinson-James said she wasn't in a position to say how many households had been interviewed. She said the numbers would be compiled after everything is completed today.

"Today will see all of our interviewers visiting households to gather Census information. And on behalf of the Department of Statistics, I want to extend my thanks to them for the yeoman's job that they are doing.

"It is important for the public to understand that the majority of our census interviewers are temporary workers, who also have full-time day jobs."

She continued: "As such, they have been visiting households during the evenings to conduct interviews with residents. Interviewers have also been visiting households on the weekends, starting in the morning.

"While there are still several households that have not been visited by an interviewer, we still encourage the public's support and participation in this national exercise."

Mrs. Robinson-James urged those who hadn't been interviewed to call 294-9046 or 297-7779 to set up an appointment.

One interviewer told this newspaper she understood there were discussions to halt the count until February a move she felt would drag out the project more than if Government soldiered on tomorrow.

The woman, who asked to remain anonymous, said interviewers continued straight through until February to complete data collection for the last census.

"What I would like to say is to tell [Government] to continue on with the Census beyond Thursday. If we don't continue, the further we get away from Census day it gets sketchy.

"If it starts up later on, it would be difficult to get the momentum going and we're going to lose people.

"We need to take advantage of the daylight that's left."

Asked why she felt the count had not been completed on time, the woman said that some residents hadn't responded as she'd hoped. "You leave a call-back card and nobody calls you I think that something should be done about these people.

"If they don't do anything now, come next census, nobody will do it. People always say 'come back'. It's never a convenient time. Most of my experiences have been positive but there have been a few negatives dealing with people who have been rude."

Her experience was shared with one person who quit after she became frustrated with the process. She said on one occasion she missed out on a christening because she had made plans to interview a family. When she got to the house at the agreed time, she saw the family driving off.

The family apologised half-heartedly when she went back.

"There is no respect for your time and the fact that you scheduled an appointment," she said.

Residents are asked a series of questions on such topics as education, income, health and ethnicity during the interview. "Some people are finding that the questions are very invasive," the person added. "I understand why they might think that but it's a numbers game. Their name and information isn't going to be entered into the system.

"Some people have just been saying they don't want to answer certain questions. It's just been people who don't want to give the information."