Manufacturing Business Outlook Survey: Unfilled orders: 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 survey data about manufacturers based in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware, the seasonally unadjusted diffusion index for unfilled orders (share of CEOs seeing a recent increase minus share reporting a decrease) was 3.6 in January 2026, compared to -7.7 in December 2025.
Sample. In this monthly time series, there are a total of 693 observations. The time span covered by the series goes from May 1968 to January 2026.
History. Here's a peek at a few descriptive statistics we calculated on the full sample: the diffusion index had a mean value of -4.2; it hit a peak of 54.0 in March 1973; it recorded a bottom of -74.0 in December 1974.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2025-11-30 | -12.9 |
| 2025-12-31 | -7.7 |
| 2026-01-31 | 3.6 |
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Series Metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Description | Diffusion index for the question: Did unfilled orders 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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