U.S. Census Bureau releases business outlook survey data for sectors, states and major metro areas

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Highlights

The U.S. Census Bureau released new BTOS data products on Oct. 22, providing high-frequency snapshots of business conditions and projections.
BTOS samples 1.2 million businesses biweekly, publishing detailed sector, state, and metro area results, excluding farms, and enables ongoing crisis impact monitoring.
Survey data, released every two weeks, supports policymakers and businesses with timely operating metrics for decision-making and tracking regional and sectoral trends.

Survey rollout expands high-frequency business tracking

As reported by the U.S. Census Bureau, new data products from the Business Trends and Outlook Survey, or BTOS, were released on Oct. 22 as part of an ongoing effort to measure current business conditions and projections. The agency said the survey will continue collecting data that complement key indicators covered in other economic surveys, including revenues, employees, hours and inventories.

BTOS is representative of employer businesses across the U.S. economy, excluding farms, and publishes timely readings every two weeks. The Census Bureau said the continuous format, combined with geographic and subsector detail, is intended to capture the effects of events such as natural disasters and economic crises while helping officials monitor recovery efforts.

The survey sample includes about 1.2 million businesses in a biweekly collection cycle. Selected firms are divided into six panels of roughly 200,000 cases each, with each panel asked to report every 12 weeks for one year; the agency estimates the average response time at about nine minutes, including review of instructions and answers.

Data support policy and business decisions

Results are set to be released every two weeks and made available by sector, state and the 25 most populous metropolitan statistical areas. That structure gives local, state and federal officials access to near real-time information for policymaking and operational decisions.

The data also provide businesses with a more frequent view of economic conditions as they assess planning and investment choices. By broadening access to recurring business expectations and operating metrics, the survey adds another high-frequency tool for tracking shifts across industries and regions.

In our earlier article on CEO survey findings about AI agents, we outlined how large U.S. companies are reporting early efficiency and growth gains while only a small share currently view the technology as truly transformational. The piece also highlighted expectations for continued hiring, retraining, and sizable AI investment as firms work through the harder task of redesigning processes and building the talent and infrastructure needed to scale adoption.

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