Fifth District Survey of Manufacturing Activity: Capacity utilization: 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 recent survey data about manufacturing firms in the Fifth District, the seasonally adjusted diffusion index for capacity utilization (share of CEOs seeing a future increase minus share reporting a decrease) was -10.0 in September 2025, compared to 3.0 in August 2025.
Sample. There are 259 data points in the monthly series presented in the graph above. The series covers the span of time going from January 1997 to September 2025.
History. Here’s a quick look at a few summary statistics we computed on the entire sample: the diffusion index attained a maximum of 52.0 in June 2020; it registered a minimum of -11.0 in April 2020; it had a mean value of 22.7.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2025-07-31 | 9.0 |
| 2025-08-31 | 3.0 |
| 2025-09-30 | -10.0 |
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Series Metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Description | Diffusion index for the question: Will capacity utilization 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) |