Manufacturing Business Outlook Survey: Average employee workweek: Current (increase vs decrease; diffusion index; percentage points; seasonally adjusted) - United States - Philly FED - Monthly
This series is part of the dataset: Manufacturing Business Outlook Survey (Philly FED)
Download Full Dataset (.xlsx)Latest updates. According to recent survey data about manufacturing firms in the Third Federal Reserve District, the seasonally adjusted diffusion index for the average employee workweek (share of CEOs seeing a recent increase minus share reporting a decrease) stood at 14.0 in July 2026, compared to -6.5 in the previous month.
Sample. There are 699 records in the monthly time series shown in the graph above. The period covered by the series goes from May 1968 to July 2026.
History. Here are some simple statistics computed on the entire sample: the diffusion index hit a trough of -53.5 in April 2020; it peaked at 36.5 in March 2021; it had an average value of 0.2.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2026-05-31 | 1.2 |
| 2026-06-30 | -6.5 |
| 2026-07-31 | 14.0 |
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Series Metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Description | Diffusion index for the question: Did the average employee workweek 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 Philadelphia |
| 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) |
Series in the same data set
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