Fifth District Survey of Manufacturing Activity: Number of employees: Current (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. Based on firms' responses to the Fifth District Survey of Manufacturing Activity carried out by the Richmond FED, the seasonally unadjusted diffusion index for the number of employees (share of CEOs seeing a recent increase minus share reporting a decrease) stood at 5.0 in May 2026, compared to 1.0 in April 2026.
Sample. This monthly time series has 393 records in total. The time range covered by the series goes from January 1993 to May 2026.
History. Take a look at some summary statistics calculated on the whole sample: the diffusion index reached its lowest level of -43.0 in February 2009; it attained a maximum of 37.0 in July 2021; it had a mean value of 1.1.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2026-03-31 | -1.0 |
| 2026-04-30 | 1.0 |
| 2026-05-31 | 5.0 |
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Series Metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Description | Diffusion index for the question: Did the number of employees 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 | 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) |
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