Fifth District Survey of Manufacturing Activity: Unfilled orders: 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. Based on firms' responses to the Fifth District Survey of Manufacturing Activity carried out by the Richmond FED, the seasonally adjusted diffusion index for unfilled orders (share of CEOs seeing a recent increase minus share reporting a decrease) stood at -21.0 in September 2025, compared to -12.0 in the previous month.
Sample. There are 290 records in the monthly time series shown in the chart above. The time span covered by the series stretches from January 1993 to September 2025.
History. Check out a few simple statistics we computed on the full sample: the diffusion index hit a peak of 31.0 in May 2021; it hit a minimum of -48.0 in April 2020; it had a mean value of -7.3.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2025-07-31 | -30.0 |
| 2025-08-31 | -12.0 |
| 2025-09-30 | -21.0 |
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Series Metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Description | Diffusion index for the question: Did unfilled orders 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) |