Fifth District Survey of Manufacturing Activity: Capacity utilization: Current (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 capacity utilization (share of CEOs seeing a recent increase minus share reporting a decrease) was -7.0 in January 2026, versus -12.0 in December 2025.
Sample. In the monthly time series displayed in the figure, there are 347 observations in total. The time span covered by the series extends from January 1997 to January 2026.
History. Check out some descriptive statistics we calculated on the full sample: the diffusion index recorded a minimum of -53.0 in April 2020; it recorded its highest level of 30.0 in March 2004; it averaged -0.8.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2025-11-30 | -18.0 |
| 2025-12-31 | -12.0 |
| 2026-01-31 | -7.0 |
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Series Metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Description | Diffusion index for the question: Did capacity utilization 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 | 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
Discover the other time series included in this data set.