The U.S. Census Bureau has released new data from the Business Trends and Outlook Survey (BTOS), an ongoing survey that tracks business conditions and projections across the country. The BTOS includes information from businesses with multiple locations and complements existing economic surveys by collecting data on revenues, employees, hours, and inventories.
According to the Census Bureau, the BTOS is designed to represent all employer businesses in the United States except for farms. The survey provides continuous and timely updates every two weeks, offering detailed geographic and subsector insights. This approach allows analysts to observe how events such as natural disasters or economic crises affect businesses and helps monitor recovery efforts.
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 asked to report every 12 weeks over a year. The agency estimates that respondents spend around nine minutes completing the survey.
Data from the BTOS will be published biweekly and will be broken down by sector, state, and for the 25 largest metropolitan areas in terms of population. According to the Census Bureau, “Survey results give local, state and federal officials essential, real-time data to aid in policymaking and decision-making. In addition, the information aids businesses in making economic decisions.”
There is no formal news release associated with this announcement; only a tip sheet was provided.
