Manufacturing Business Outlook Survey: Unfilled orders: Future (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 unfilled orders (share of CEOs seeing a future increase minus share forecasting a decrease) stood at 19.2 in October 2025, compared to 12.0 in September.
Sample. There are 690 records overall in the monthly series presented in the chart above. The time range covered by the series extends from May 1968 to October 2025.
History. Here's a snapshot of a few descriptive statistics we computed on the whole sample: the diffusion index had a mean of 8.8; it reached a minimum of -41.5 in December 1973; it hit a maximum of 58.4 in June 1983.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2025-08-31 | 7.7 |
| 2025-09-30 | 12.0 |
| 2025-10-31 | 19.2 |
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Series Metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Description | Diffusion index for the question: Will unfilled orders increase or decrease over the next six months? |
| Country | United States |
| Economic concept | Business survey response |
| Data type | Leading 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) |