The U.S. Census Bureau has released new data from the Business Trends and Outlook Survey (BTOS), which tracks business conditions and future projections on an ongoing basis. The survey covers all employer businesses in the United States, except for farms, and now includes information for multiunit or multilocation businesses.
According to the Census Bureau, BTOS collects complementary data to other economic surveys by focusing on key measures such as revenues, employees, hours worked, and inventories. The survey is designed to provide continuous and timely updates every two weeks, offering insights into the current state of the economy with detailed geographic and subsector breakdowns.
The BTOS sample includes about 1.2 million businesses. These are divided into six panels of approximately 200,000 each; each panel is asked to report once every 12 weeks over a year. The agency estimates that it takes respondents around nine minutes to complete the survey.
Data from BTOS will be published biweekly and made available by sector, state, and for the 25 largest metropolitan statistical areas in the country. This information is intended to support local, state, and federal officials with real-time data for policymaking purposes while also helping businesses make informed economic decisions.
There was no accompanying news release with this announcement; only a tip sheet was provided.
