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[Federal Register Volume 89, Number 243 (Wednesday, December 18, 2024)]
[Notices]
[Pages 102854-102855]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2024-29834]

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DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

Census Bureau

Agency Information Collection Activities; Submission to the 
Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for Review and Approval; Comment 
Request; Business Trends and Outlook Survey (BTOS)

AGENCY: Census Bureau, Commerce.

ACTION: Notice of information collection, request for comment.

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SUMMARY: The Department of Commerce, in accordance with the Paperwork 
Reduction Act (PRA) of 1995, invites the general public and other 
Federal agencies to comment on proposed, and continuing information 
collections, which helps us assess the impact of our information 
collection requirements and minimize the public's reporting burden. The 
purpose of this notice is to allow for 60 days of public comment on the 
proposed revisions to the BTOS prior to the submission of the 
information collection request (ICR) to OMB for approval.

DATES: To ensure consideration, comments regarding this proposed 
information collection must be received on or before February 18, 2025.

ADDRESSES: Interested persons are invited to submit written comments by 
email to [email protected]. Please reference BTOS in the 
subject line of your comments. You may also submit comments, identified 
by Docket Number USCB-2024-0034, to the Federal e-Rulemaking Portal: 
http://www.regulations.gov. All comments received are part of the 
public record. No comments will be posted to http://www.regulations.gov 
for public viewing until after the comment period has closed. Comments 
will generally be posted without change. All Personally Identifiable 
Information (for example, name and address) voluntarily submitted by 
the commenter may be publicly accessible. Do not submit Confidential 
Business Information or otherwise sensitive or protected information. 
You may submit attachments to electronic comments in Microsoft Word, 
Excel, or Adobe PDF file formats.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Requests for additional information or 
specific questions related to collection activities should be directed 
to Catherine Buffington, Chief, Economic Indicator Division, 301-763-
1838, and [email protected].

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

I. Abstract

    The U.S. Census Bureau plans to request a 3-year extension with 
revisions from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for the 
Business Trends and Outlook Survey (BTOS). The BTOS has produced data 
products on a bi-weekly basis since October 2022. This continuous near 
real time data collection and publication provides a baseline of the 
U.S. economy and measures change as a result of current and future 
economic shocks.
    BTOS uses ongoing data collection to produce high frequency, 
timely, and granular information about current economic conditions and 
trends. BTOS is the only biweekly business tendency survey produced by 
the federal statistical system, providing unique and detailed data 
during times of economic or other emergencies. The BTOS target 
population is all nonfarm employer businesses with receipts of $1,000 
or more in the United States, the District of Columbia, and Puerto 
Rico. The current sample consists of approximately 1.2 million 
businesses divided into six panels. A new sample collection is 
conducted each year. Data collection occurs every two weeks, and 
businesses in each panel are asked to report once every 12 weeks for 
one year. Data are released every 2 weeks and are available by 2017 
North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) sector, state, 
the 25 most populous Metropolitan Statistical Areas and employment 
size. Data are also available by subsector (3-digit NAICS) and sector 
by employment size.
    Data from BTOS are currently used to provide timely data to 
understand the economic conditions being experienced by businesses; 
BTOS provides near real time data on key items such as revenue, paid 
employees, hours worked as well as inventories. BTOS also provides high 
level information on the changing share of businesses facing 
difficulties stemming from supply chain issues, interest rate changes, 
and/or weather-related events. Previously, there had been few data 
sources available to policymakers, media outlets, and academia that 
delivered near real time insights into economic trends and outlooks. 
BTOS data has consistently been used by the Small Business 
Administration to evaluate the impact of regulatory changes.
    The BTOS collects the following high-level topics for the previous 
two weeks, and the items in bold have 6-month future projections:

 Overall performance
 Revenue
 Employment
 Hours worked
 Artificial Intelligence
 Operating status
 Inventories
 Delivery time
 Demand
 Output prices
 Input prices
 Interest Rates
 Loss--Weather Event

    For the first year of BTOS, the content remained unchanged at 26 
questions. For the second sample year, the BTOS moved to a set of core 
questions and supplemental content. Supplemental content is designed to 
provide urgently needed data on an emerging or current issue. For the 
first collection of supplemental content, the topic was on business use 
of artificial intelligence. Due to vast demand to continue this data 
series, the Census Bureau plans to request a revision to include the 
artificial intelligence supplement again for the fourth sample year of 
BTOS.
    BTOS data is collected in near real time and disseminated as 
experimental products. BTOS data is experimental

[[Page 102855]]

with the goal of meeting Census Bureau quality standards for regularly 
occurring, non-experimental statistics.

II. Method of Collection

    The first time each biweekly panel is in sample, businesses are 
contacted either by email or letter with an invitation to respond to 
the survey. For each biweekly survey panel, initial letters are sent on 
the Friday before the 2-week period while initial emails are sent on 
the first Monday of the 2-week period. Starting with the second time 
each biweekly panel is in sample, businesses are contacted only by 
email with an invitation to respond to the survey. Both letter and 
email invitations describe the purpose of the survey collection, 
include the link to the online reporting tool, and contain the access 
code.

III. Data

    OMB Control Number: 0607-1022.
    Form Number(s): None.
    Type of Review: Regular submission, Request for a Revision of a 
Currently Approved Collection.
    Affected Public: Business or other for-profit organizations.
    Estimated Number of Respondents: 795,000 responses collected 
annually.
    Estimated Time per Response: 10 minutes.
    Estimated Total Annual Burden Hours: 132,500.
    Estimated Total Annual Cost to Public: $0 (This is not the cost of 
respondents' time, but the indirect costs respondents may incur for 
such things as purchases of specialized software or hardware needed to 
report, or expenditures for accounting or records maintenance services 
required specifically by the collection.)
    Respondent's Obligation: Voluntary.
    Legal Authority: Title 13 U.S.C., Sections 131 and 182.

IV. Request for Comments

    We are soliciting public comments to permit the Department/Bureau 
to: (a) Evaluate whether the proposed information collection is 
necessary for the proper functions of the Department, including whether 
the information will have practical utility; (b) Evaluate the accuracy 
of our estimate of the time and cost burden for this proposed 
collection, including the validity of the methodology and assumptions 
used; (c) Evaluate ways to enhance the quality, utility, and clarity of 
the information to be collected; and (d) Minimize the reporting burden 
on those who are to respond, including the use of automated collection 
techniques or other forms of information technology.
    Comments that you submit in response to this notice are a matter of 
public record. We will include, or summarize, each comment in our 
request to OMB to approve this ICR. Before including your address, 
phone number, email address, or other personal identifying information 
in your comment, you should be aware that your entire comment--
including your personal identifying information--may be made publicly 
available at any time. While you may ask us in your comment to withhold 
your personal identifying information from public review, we cannot 
guarantee that we will be able to do so.

Sheleen Dumas,
Departmental PRA Clearance Officer, Office of the Under Secretary for 
Economic Affairs, Commerce Department.
[FR Doc. 2024-29834 Filed 12-17-24; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 3510-07-P
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