The U.S. Census Bureau has released new data from the Business Trends and Outlook Survey (BTOS), which provides ongoing measurements of business conditions and projections. The BTOS covers multiunit and multilocation businesses, collecting information that complements other economic surveys, including revenues, employment, hours worked, and inventories.
This survey represents all employer businesses in the United States except for farms. It offers continuous data on key economic measures every two weeks, with details by geography and industry subsector. According to the Census Bureau, this allows for monitoring the effects of events such as natural disasters or economic crises and supports efforts to track recovery.
The BTOS sample includes about 1.2 million businesses participating in biweekly data collection. Businesses are divided into six panels of roughly 200,000 each, reporting every 12 weeks over a year. The Census Bureau estimates that it takes respondents an average of nine minutes to complete the survey.
Results will be released every two weeks and made available by sector, state, and for the 25 largest metropolitan statistical areas. The data is intended to provide local, state, and federal officials with timely information for policymaking while also helping businesses make informed economic decisions.
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