Average Fed Mfg Survey: Number of employees: Future (increase vs decrease; diffusion index; percentage points; seasonally adjusted) - United States - FSR - Monthly
This series is part of the dataset: Average Fed Mfg Survey (FetchSeries Research)
Download Full Dataset (.xlsx)Latest updates. Based on an average of regional Federal Reserve manufacturing surveys, the seasonally adjusted diffusion index for number of employees stood at 20.9 (share of CEOs seeing a future increase minus share forecasting a decrease) in September 2026, versus 26.0 in August 2026.
Sample. The monthly time series presented in the figure has 268 observations. The time range covered by the series is from June 2004 to September 2026.
History. Here’s a quick look at a few descriptive statistics calculated on the whole sample: the diffusion index registered a minimum of -23.9 in February 2009; it recorded a maximum of 48.4 in June 2021; it was equal on average to 18.1.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2026-07-31 | 19.2000 |
| 2026-08-31 | 26.0200 |
| 2026-09-30 | 20.9400 |
Suggestion. One of the pluses of using FetchSeries is that we give you accurate metadata. Check it below to better understand the characteristics of the series that you use in your work.
Not for investment purposes. Information disseminated on FetchSeries is not suitable for investment purposes or other financial decisions. Users should seek professional advice and do their own independent due diligence before making any financial commitments.
Series Metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Description | Diffusion index for the question: Will the number of employees increase or decrease over the next six months? |
| Country | United States |
| Economic concept | Business survey response |
| Data type | Leading indicator of the business cycle |
| Seasonally adjusted | Yes |
| Deflation method | Not applicable |
| Rescaling | None |
| Measure type | Diffusion index (share of respondents reporting an increase minus share reporting a decrease) |
| Frequency | Monthly |
| Unit | Percentage points |
| Source | FetchSeries Research calculations on Federal Reserve data |
| Source type | Data research lab |
| Data licence | Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) + FetchSeries disclaimers |
| Other information | Arithmetic average across 5 regional Federal Reserve manufacturing surveys |
| FSR temporal aggregation code | LM01 |
Series in the same data set
Discover the other time series included in this data set.