Fifth District Survey of Manufacturing Activity: Availability of skills needed: Future (increase vs decrease; diffusion index; percentage points; seasonally adjusted) - 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 survey data about manufacturers based in the Fifth District, the seasonally adjusted diffusion index for the availability of skills needed (share of CEOs seeing a future increase minus share forecasting a decrease) was -3.0 in April 2026, compared to -1.0 in March.
Sample. The monthly time series displayed in the plot has 186 records in total. The time span covered by the series goes from February 2010 to April 2026.
History. Check out a few simple statistics computed on the entire sample: the diffusion index had a mean value of -3.5; it reached its minimum of -29.0 in June 2019; it hit a peak of 12.0 in February 2010.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2026-02-28 | -8.0 |
| 2026-03-31 | -1.0 |
| 2026-04-30 | -3.0 |
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Series Metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Description | Diffusion index for the question: Will the availability of skills needed increase or decrease over the next six months? |
| Country | United States |
| Economic concept | Business survey response |
| Data type | Leading indicator of the business cycle |
| Deflation method | Not applicable |
| Seasonally adjusted | Yes |
| 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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