The U.S. Census Bureau has released new data from the Business Trends and Outlook Survey (BTOS), which tracks business conditions and projections on an ongoing basis. The survey covers multiunit and multilocation businesses, collecting information that complements other economic surveys by including data such as revenues, employees, hours worked, and inventories.
The BTOS is designed to represent all employer businesses in the United States except for farms. It provides regular updates every two weeks on key economic measures with geographic and subsector detail. This allows the survey to capture the effects of events like natural disasters or economic crises and helps monitor recovery efforts.
Approximately 1.2 million businesses are included in the BTOS sample, with biweekly data collection. These businesses are divided into six panels of about 200,000 each; each panel reports every 12 weeks over a year. According to the Census Bureau, it takes respondents an average of nine minutes to complete the survey.
Biweekly releases will provide data by sector, state, and for the 25 most populous metropolitan statistical areas. The results offer local, state, and federal officials real-time information useful for policymaking and decision-making. Businesses can also use this information when making their own economic decisions.
There is no news release associated with this announcement; only a tip sheet was provided.
