Fifth District Survey of Manufacturing Activity: Availability of skills needed: Current (increase vs decrease; diffusion index; percentage points; seasonally unadjusted) - United States - Richmond FED - Monthly
This series is part of the dataset: Fifth District Survey of Manufacturing Activity (Richmond FED)
Download Full Dataset (.xlsx)Latest updates. According to recent survey data about manufacturing firms in the Fifth District, the seasonally unadjusted diffusion index for the availability of skills needed (share of CEOs seeing a recent increase minus share reporting a decrease) stood at -13.0 in February 2026, compared to -16.0 in January 2026.
Sample. There are 184 records overall in the monthly series shown in the plot above. The series covers the time range stretching from February 2010 to February 2026.
History. Check out some summary statistics we computed on the entire sample: the diffusion index averaged -7.6; it reached a minimum of -45.0 in May 2021; it achieved a maximum of 9.0 in February 2015.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2025-12-31 | -6.0 |
| 2026-01-31 | -16.0 |
| 2026-02-28 | -13.0 |
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Series Metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Description | Diffusion index for the question: Did the availability of skills needed increase or decrease in the past month? |
| Country | United States |
| Economic concept | Business survey response |
| Data type | Coincident indicator of the business cycle |
| Deflation method | Not applicable |
| Seasonally adjusted | No |
| Rescaling | None |
| Frequency | Monthly |
| Unit | Percentage points |
| Source | Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond |
| Source type | Central bank |
| Data licence | Not copyrightable under U.S. law |
| Measure type | Diffusion index (share of respondents reporting an increase minus share reporting a decrease) |
Series in the same data set
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