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. Based on firms' responses to the Manufacturing Business Outlook Survey carried out by the Philadelphia FED, the seasonally adjusted diffusion index for the average employee workweek (share of CEOs seeing a recent increase minus share reporting a decrease) was 2.8 in March 2026, compared to -11.6 in the previous month.
Sample. There are 695 records overall in the monthly series shown in the figure above. The time range covered by the series extends from May 1968 to March 2026.
History. Have a look at some statistics we computed on the entire sample: the diffusion index hit a trough of -53.5 in April 2020; it recorded its maximum of 36.5 in March 2021; it had a mean of 0.2.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2026-01-31 | 9.1 |
| 2026-02-28 | -11.6 |
| 2026-03-31 | 2.8 |
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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
Discover the other time series included in this data set.