Kansas City Fed Manufacturing Survey: Number of employees: Future (increase vs decrease; diffusion index; percentage points; seasonally adjusted) - United States - Kansas City Fed - Monthly
This series is part of the dataset: Kansas City Fed Manufacturing Survey
Download Full Dataset (.xlsx)Latest updates. According to recent survey data about manufacturing firms in the Tenth Federal Reserve District, the seasonally adjusted diffusion index for number of employees was 22.0 (share of CEOs seeing a future increase minus share forecasting a decrease) in February 2026, compared to 3.0 in January.
Sample. There are 296 data points overall in the monthly series shown in the plot above. The time period covered by the series goes from July 2001 to February 2026.
History. Here's a glimpse of some summary statistics we calculated on the whole sample: the diffusion index was equal on average to 14.9; it recorded its highest level of 53.0 in April 2021; it reached its minimum of -38.0 in February 2009.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2025-12-31 | 17.0 |
| 2026-01-31 | 3.0 |
| 2026-02-28 | 22.0 |
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Series Metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Description | Diffusion index for the question: Will the number of employees increase or decrease over the next six months? |
| Country | United States |
| Economic concept | Business survey response |
| Data type | Leading indicator of the business cycle |
| Seasonally adjusted | Yes |
| Deflation method | Not applicable |
| Rescaling | None |
| Measure type | Diffusion index (share of respondents reporting an increase minus share reporting a decrease) |
| Frequency | Monthly |
| Unit | Percentage points |
| Source | Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City |
| Source type | Central bank |
| Data licence | Reproduction allowed subject to conditions |
| Other information | FS correspondence: Number of employees |
| FSR temporal aggregation code | LM01 |
Series in the same data set
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