The U.S. Census Bureau has published new data from the Business Trends and Outlook Survey (BTOS), which measures ongoing business conditions and projections. The survey includes information from businesses with multiple locations and provides data that complements other economic surveys by covering revenues, employees, hours, and inventories.
The BTOS represents all employer businesses in the United States, excluding farms. It delivers continuous and timely economic data every two weeks, offering details by geography and industry subsector. This approach allows the survey to track the effects of events such as natural disasters or economic crises and helps monitor recovery efforts.
Approximately 1.2 million businesses are sampled for BTOS, with biweekly data collection. The sample is divided into six panels of about 200,000 businesses each; each panel reports once every 12 weeks over a year. Completing the survey takes an average respondent around nine minutes.
Data from BTOS will be released every two weeks, available by sector, state, and for the 25 largest metropolitan statistical areas. These results provide real-time information to local, state, and federal officials for policymaking purposes and support businesses in their economic planning.
No news release was issued alongside this announcement; only a tip sheet was provided.
