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. Based on firms' responses to the Fifth District Survey of Manufacturing Activity carried out by the Richmond FED, 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 -7.0 in October 2026, compared to -10.0 in the previous month.
Sample. The monthly series presented in the figure has 191 data points overall. The time span covered by the series is from December 2010 to October 2026.
History. Here's a snapshot of some statistics we computed on the entire sample: the diffusion index reached a trough of -45.0 in May 2021; it hit a maximum of 9.0 in February 2015; it had a mean value of -7.8.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2026-08-31 | -13.0000 |
| 2026-09-30 | -10.0000 |
| 2026-10-31 | -7.00000 |
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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) |
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