The U.S. Census Bureau has released new data from the Business Trends and Outlook Survey (BTOS), a program that tracks business conditions and projections across the country. The BTOS covers multiunit and multilocation businesses, gathering information on key economic factors such as revenues, employees, hours worked, and inventories.
According to the Census Bureau, the survey is designed to represent all employer businesses in the United States except for farms. Data are collected every two weeks from a sample of about 1.2 million businesses. These businesses are divided into six panels of roughly 200,000 each, with each panel asked to respond every 12 weeks over a year.
The BTOS aims to provide continuous and timely economic data with geographic and subsector detail. This allows analysts to observe how events like natural disasters or economic crises affect different regions or industries and helps track recovery efforts over time.
“BTOS provides insight into the state of the economy by providing continuous, timely data for key economic measures every two weeks. By providing continuous data with geographic and subsector detail, BTOS captures the impact of events like natural disasters and economic crises and assists in monitoring recovery efforts,” according to information from the Census Bureau.
Survey results will be available biweekly by sector, state, and for the 25 most populous metropolitan statistical areas. The agency notes that these findings offer local, state, and federal officials essential real-time data for policymaking while also helping businesses make informed decisions.
The average respondent spends about nine minutes completing the survey.
No formal news release was issued alongside this announcement; only a tip sheet was provided.
