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 stood at 3.0 (share of CEOs seeing a future increase minus share forecasting a decrease) in January 2026, compared to 17.0 in December 2025.
Sample. In this monthly time series, there are 295 records. The series covers the period stretching from July 2001 to January 2026.
History. Here's a peek at some summary statistics we calculated on the whole sample: the diffusion index had an average value of 14.9; it recorded a bottom of -38.0 in February 2009; it peaked at 53.0 in April 2021.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2025-11-30 | 11.0 |
| 2025-12-31 | 17.0 |
| 2026-01-01 | 3.0 |
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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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