The U.S. Census Bureau has released new data from the Business Trends and Outlook Survey (BTOS), a survey that tracks business conditions and projections across the country. The BTOS now includes information for businesses with multiple locations, expanding its coverage of the U.S. economy.
The survey collects data that complements other economic surveys by including information on revenues, employees, hours worked, and inventories. The BTOS is designed to represent all employer businesses in the United States, excluding farms.
By providing biweekly updates with geographic and industry-specific detail, the BTOS helps track how events such as natural disasters or economic crises affect businesses and supports monitoring of recovery efforts. “BTOS provides insight into the state of the economy by providing continuous, timely data for key economic measures every two weeks. By providing continuous data with geographic and subsector detail, BTOS captures the impact of events like natural disasters and economic crises and assists in monitoring recovery efforts,” according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
The sample size for each collection period is about 1.2 million businesses, divided into six panels of roughly 200,000 cases each. Each panel reports once every 12 weeks over a yearlong period. Completing the survey takes an estimated nine minutes per respondent.
Data will be published every two weeks and made available by sector, state, and within the 25 largest metropolitan areas in the country. 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.”
No formal news release accompanied this announcement; it was issued as a tip sheet only.
