The U.S. Census Bureau has released new data products from the Business Trends and Outlook Survey (BTOS), which measures business conditions and projections on an ongoing basis. The survey now includes data for multiunit and multilocation businesses.
According to the Census Bureau, BTOS collects information that complements key items found in other economic surveys, such as revenues, employees, hours worked, and inventories. The survey covers all employer businesses in the United States except farms.
The BTOS provides continuous and timely data for important economic indicators every two weeks. This approach allows the survey to capture the effects of events like natural disasters or economic crises and helps monitor recovery efforts by offering geographic and subsector details.
Approximately 1.2 million businesses are included in the BTOS sample, with biweekly data collection. Selected businesses are divided into six panels of about 200,000 each; each panel is asked to report every 12 weeks over a year. The Census Bureau estimates it takes about nine minutes for respondents to complete the survey.
BTOS results will be released every two weeks and made available by sector, state, and for the 25 most populous metropolitan statistical areas. These results provide local, state, and federal officials with real-time data needed for policymaking and decision-making. Businesses can also use this information to support their own economic decisions.
There is no separate news release associated with this announcement; only a tip sheet was provided by the agency.
