Manufacturing Business Outlook Survey: Average employee workweek: Current (increase vs decrease; diffusion index; percentage points; seasonally unadjusted) - 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 unadjusted diffusion index for the average employee workweek (share of CEOs seeing a recent increase minus share reporting a decrease) was 13.8 in July 2026, compared to -4.2 in June 2026.
Sample. There are 699 data points in the monthly time series displayed in the graph above. The time range covered by the series is from May 1968 to July 2026.
History. Check out some descriptive statistics calculated on the whole sample: the diffusion index recorded a minimum of -49.2 in April 2020; it peaked at 42.9 in March 2021; it had a mean of 0.2.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2026-05-31 | 3.8 |
| 2026-06-30 | -4.2 |
| 2026-07-31 | 13.8 |
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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 | No |
| 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) |
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