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 2.0 in July 2026, compared to -1.0 in the previous month.
Sample. There are 353 observations in the monthly time series shown in the figure above. The span of time covered by the series extends from January 1997 to July 2026.
History. Check out a few summary statistics we computed on the full sample: the diffusion index was equal on average to -0.8; it hit a peak of 31.0 in March 2004; it recorded a minimum of -55.0 in April 2020.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2026-05-31 | -3.0 |
| 2026-06-30 | -1.0 |
| 2026-07-31 | 2.0 |
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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.