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. According to survey data about manufacturers based in the Fifth District, the seasonally unadjusted diffusion index for the number of employees (share of CEOs seeing a recent increase minus share reporting a decrease) was -8.0 in January 2026, versus -3.0 in December 2025.
Sample. There are 389 records overall in the monthly time series presented in the graph above. The series covers the time span stretching from January 1993 to January 2026.
History. Here’s a quick look at some statistics we calculated on the whole sample: the diffusion index had a mean of 1.1; it reached its minimum of -43.0 in February 2009; it recorded its highest level of 37.0 in July 2021.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2025-11-30 | -9.0 |
| 2025-12-31 | -3.0 |
| 2026-01-31 | -8.0 |
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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) |
Series in the same data set
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