Manufacturing Business Outlook Survey: Number of employees: 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 number of employees (share of CEOs seeing a recent increase minus share reporting a decrease) was 6.0 in November 2025, versus 4.6 in October 2025.
Sample. There are 691 observations overall in the monthly time series displayed in the graph above. The time range covered by the series goes from May 1968 to November 2025.
History. Here are some summary statistics we computed on the entire sample: the diffusion index was equal on average to 2.1; it peaked at 41.1 in March 2022; it reached its minimum of -51.8 in March 2009.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2025-09-30 | 5.6 |
| 2025-10-31 | 4.6 |
| 2025-11-30 | 6.0 |
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Series Metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Description | Diffusion index for the question: Did the number of employees 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) |
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