Millions of Germans will be surveyed as part of the 2022 census. In addition to the short survey of households, which only takes a few minutes, there are also additional questions about education, employment and occupation, which are somewhat more complex. Building and apartment owners also have to fill out an additional questionnaire, which can sometimes cause confusion.
Because if the Federal Office has the wrong address for an apartment owner, it can happen that you receive a cover letter for the building and apartment census for a property that you don’t know at all.
However, since you are obliged to answer the questionnaire, you cannot simply ignore the cover letter. We will therefore show you where you can get help with these and other complications with the census survey.
If you need help with a question, there are telephone hotlines specially set up for this purpose. You will find the contact details of the statistical office responsible for you on the cover letter.
However, since the hotlines are sometimes very busy, you may have to expect long waiting times and call again at a later time. Tip: You have a better chance of getting through if you call in the evening or at the weekend.
Alternatively, you can also use an online contact form where you can select the federal state that contacted you about the census. The FAQ section of the census website also answers the most important questions.
The general rule is: If you have received an incorrect cover letter or cannot cope with the online questionnaire and you cannot get through to your responsible hotline, be patient.
Even if answering the questions is mandatory and there is a risk of a fine if you refuse, this will not be imposed immediately. The Federal Office will send you a reminder with a new deadline, then a reminder and only then will you be fined, as project manager Katja Wilken explains to rbb.
The FAQ section of the census website is very cumbersome and can only be used with a keyword search. We have therefore selected three questions and their answers that, in our opinion, can cause the most problems.
In addition to problems with the technical implementation or questions about the process of the survey, questions about the content can also arise.
To know what to expect from the census, you can take a look at the sample questionnaire that contains all the 2022 census questions. You can clarify tricky questions or special cases in advance.
The original to this post “Census questions cause confusion – you can get help here” comes from chip.de.
