Manufacturing Business Outlook Survey: Unfilled orders: Future (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 collected by the Federal Reserve in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware, the seasonally unadjusted diffusion index for unfilled orders (share of CEOs seeing a future increase minus share forecasting a decrease) was 21.2 in October 2025, compared to 7.1 in September.
Sample. There are 690 records overall in the monthly time series presented in the plot above. The series covers the span of time going from May 1968 to October 2025.
History. Here are some simple statistics we computed on the entire sample: the diffusion index was equal on average to 8.7; it recorded a minimum of -40.4 in August 2022; it hit a peak of 55.0 in June 1983.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2025-08-31 | 0.0 |
| 2025-09-30 | 7.1 |
| 2025-10-31 | 21.2 |
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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 | 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) |