The U.S. Census Bureau has released new data products from the Business Trends and Outlook Survey (BTOS), which tracks business conditions and projections across the United States. The survey now includes information for multiunit and multilocation businesses, broadening its coverage of employer businesses in the country, except for farms.
The BTOS provides continuous data on economic measures such as revenues, employees, hours, and inventories. Data is collected every two weeks, offering timely insights into the state of the economy with geographic and industry-specific detail. This allows for monitoring the effects of events like natural disasters or economic crises and supports efforts to track recovery.
Approximately 1.2 million businesses are included in the BTOS sample. These are divided into six panels of about 200,000 each, with each panel reporting every 12 weeks over a year. The Census Bureau estimates that it takes respondents around nine minutes to complete the survey.
Results from the BTOS will be released biweekly and made available by sector, state, and for the 25 largest metropolitan statistical areas. The data is intended to help officials at all levels of government make informed policy decisions and also provide valuable information for businesses as they plan their operations.
There was no separate news release associated with this announcement; it was distributed as a tip sheet.
