The U.S. Census Bureau has released new data from the Business Trends and Outlook Survey (BTOS), which tracks business conditions and projections on an ongoing basis. The survey covers multiunit and multilocation businesses, providing information that complements other economic surveys by including key metrics such as revenues, employees, hours worked, and inventories.
BTOS is designed to represent all employer businesses in the United States except for farms. It provides continuous data every two weeks, offering detailed insights at both geographic and subsector levels. This approach helps monitor the effects of events like natural disasters or economic crises and supports efforts to track recovery.
Approximately 1.2 million businesses are included in the BTOS sample, with biweekly data collection cycles. These businesses are divided into six panels of about 200,000 each; each panel reports once every 12 weeks over a year. According to the Census Bureau, it takes respondents around nine minutes to complete the survey.
Biweekly releases of BTOS data will be available by sector, state, and for the 25 most populous metropolitan statistical areas. The results provide local, state, and federal officials with real-time information useful for policymaking and decision-making. Businesses can also use this information when making economic decisions.
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