Nonmanufacturing Business Outlook Survey: Full-time permanent employees: Current (increase vs decrease; diffusion index; percentage points; seasonally adjusted) - United States - Philly FED - Monthly
This series is part of the dataset: Nonmanufacturing Business Outlook Survey (Philly FED)
Download Full Dataset (.xlsx)Latest updates. Based on a sample of nonmanufacturing firms surveyed by the Fed, the seasonally adjusted diffusion index for the number of full-time permanent employees (share of CEOs seeing a recent increase minus share reporting a decrease) stood at 19.0 in September 2026, compared to 2.1 in August 2026.
Sample. There are 187 data points overall in the monthly time series shown in the chart above. The time span covered by the series goes from March 2011 to September 2026.
History. Here's a glimpse of a few statistics we computed on the entire sample: the diffusion index hit a minimum of -46.7 in April 2020; it recorded its maximum of 34.3 in September 2018; it had a mean of 11.4.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2026-07-31 | 12.4000 |
| 2026-08-31 | 2.10000 |
| 2026-09-30 | 19.0000 |
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Series Metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Description | Diffusion index for the question: Did the number of full-time permanent 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) |
Series in the same data set
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