The U.S. Census Bureau has released new data products from the Business Trends and Outlook Survey (BTOS), an ongoing survey that tracks business conditions and projections across the country. The BTOS gathers information from multiunit and multilocation businesses, offering continuous data on key economic measures such as revenues, employees, hours, and inventories.
The survey covers all employer businesses in the United States except for farms. Data is collected every two weeks, providing timely updates with geographic and subsector detail. This approach allows the BTOS to capture the effects of events like natural disasters or economic crises, supporting efforts to monitor 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 asked to report every 12 weeks throughout a year. According to the Census Bureau’s estimates, it takes an average respondent around nine minutes to complete the survey.
Data will be published biweekly and made available by sector, state, and for the 25 most populous metropolitan statistical areas. The results are intended to provide essential real-time data for local, state, and federal officials to support policymaking decisions. Businesses can also use this information when making economic choices.
There is no separate news release associated with this announcement; it is provided as a tip sheet only.
