ORLANDO, Fla. – Two weeks after a federal judge prohibited the U.S. Census Bureau from winding down the 2020 census, a manager in Illinois instructed employees to get started with layoffs, according to an audio of the conversation obtained by The Associated Press.During a conference call Thursday, the Chicago area manager told supervisors who report to him that they should track down census takers who don't currently have any cases, collect the iPhones they use to record information, and bid them goodbye.
The manager did not respond to an email from the AP.“I would really like to get a head start on terminating these people," he said. “All of these inactives that we have, we need to get rid of them.