Fifth District Survey of Manufacturing Activity: Availability of skills needed: Future (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 future increase minus share forecasting a decrease) stood at -1.0 in September 2025, compared to -12.0 in August.
Sample. In this monthly series, there are a total of 136 data points. The series covers the span of time going from February 2010 to September 2025.
History. Check out some descriptive statistics computed on the entire sample: the diffusion index attained a maximum of 14.0 in May 2020; it reached a minimum of -30.0 in May 2021; it averaged -3.3.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2025-07-31 | 3.0 |
| 2025-08-31 | -12.0 |
| 2025-09-30 | -1.0 |
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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 | 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) |