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 survey data about manufacturers collected by the Federal Reserve in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware, the seasonally adjusted diffusion index for the number of employees (share of CEOs seeing a recent increase minus share reporting a decrease) was 4.6 in October 2025, compared to 5.6 in September 2025.
Sample. The monthly series plotted above has 690 records. The time span covered by the series stretches from May 1968 to October 2025.
History. Here's a glimpse of a few summary statistics calculated on the whole sample: the diffusion index reached a minimum of -51.8 in March 2009; it recorded its maximum of 41.1 in March 2022; it had a mean of 2.1.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2025-08-31 | 5.9 |
| 2025-09-30 | 5.6 |
| 2025-10-31 | 4.6 |
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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) |