The U.S. Census Bureau has released new data products from the Business Trends and Outlook Survey (BTOS), which tracks business conditions and projections across the United States. The BTOS covers all employer businesses except farms, offering continuous and timely data on economic measures such as revenues, employees, hours, and inventories.
The survey is designed to provide insight into the state of the economy by collecting biweekly data from about 1.2 million businesses. These businesses are divided into six panels of roughly 200,000 each, with each panel reporting every 12 weeks over a year. According to the Census Bureau, completing the survey takes an average of nine minutes per respondent.
Data collected through BTOS will be made available every two weeks and can be broken down by sector, state, and for the 25 most populous metropolitan statistical areas. The information is intended to help local, state, and federal officials make informed policy decisions and also assist businesses in their economic planning.
The BTOS also aims to capture how events such as natural disasters or economic crises affect businesses and to monitor recovery efforts over time.
There was no news release associated with this announcement; only a tip sheet was provided.
