Fifth District Survey of Non-Manufacturing Activity: Availability of skills needed: 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 Non-Manufacturing Activity (Richmond FED)
Download Full Dataset (.xlsx)Latest updates. According to survey data about nonmanufacturing firms collected by the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, the seasonally unadjusted diffusion index for the availability of skills needed (share of CEOs seeing a recent increase minus share reporting a decrease) stood at -4.0 in September 2026, compared to -2.0 in August 2026.
Sample. There are 190 observations in the monthly time series presented in the plot above. The time range covered by the series stretches from December 2010 to September 2026.
History. Here's a snapshot of a few summary statistics we calculated on the whole sample: the diffusion index reached its highest level of 18.0 in May 2020; it recorded a bottom of -34.0 in October 2021; it had a mean value of -4.3.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2026-07-31 | -1.00000 |
| 2026-08-31 | -2.00000 |
| 2026-09-30 | -4.00000 |
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Series Metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Description | Diffusion index for the question: Did the availability of skills needed 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) |
| Other information | Not available |
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