China will recruit 6.5 million census takers for the next national population census beginning on Nov. 1, authorities said Sunday, World Population Day.

The enumerators will mostly be made up of local residents and workers from neighborhood or village committees, Feng Nailin, head of National Bureau of Statistics' population and employment statistics department, told a forum on world population at the Shanghai World Expo.

Each of them will be responsible for collecting data of 250 to 300 people. They will have to work for 40 to 60 days, Feng said.

The bureau will have to recruit residents as local governments, which used to be the main source of enumerators in the previous censuses, could not spare their staff, Feng said.

He expected the cost of the census to be significantly more than previous ones as the recruited enumerators would be reasonably paid to ensure the quality of work.

China holds a national census every ten years. The previous one in 2000 showed the world's most populous country had a population of more than 1.29 billion.

The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) has set the theme of World Population Day 2010 as "Everyone Counts," stressing the importance of demographic data in planning public facilities and designing population policies for the future.

"Counting everyone is an integral part of ensuring that we take everyone into account," UNFPA wrote in a bulletin on its website.

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