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 collected by the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, the seasonally unadjusted diffusion index for the number of employees (share of CEOs seeing a recent increase minus share reporting a decrease) was 3.0 in October 2026, versus 5.0 in the previous month.
Sample. There are 396 observations overall in the monthly time series shown in the figure above. The series covers the period going from November 1993 to October 2026.
History. Here are a few descriptive statistics we calculated on the entire sample: the diffusion index had a mean of 1.1; it recorded a bottom of -43.0 in February 2009; it recorded its highest level of 37.0 in July 2021.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2026-08-31 | -3.00000 |
| 2026-09-30 | 5.00000 |
| 2026-10-31 | 3.00000 |
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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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