Nonmanufacturing Business Outlook Survey: Full-time permanent employees: Current (increase vs decrease; diffusion index; percentage points; seasonally unadjusted) - United States - Philly FED - Monthly
This series is part of the dataset: Nonmanufacturing Business Outlook Survey (Philly FED)
Download Full Dataset (.xlsx)Latest updates. According to survey data about nonmanufacturing firms based in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware, the seasonally unadjusted diffusion index for the number of full-time permanent employees (share of CEOs seeing a recent increase minus share reporting a decrease) was 16.2 in September 2026, versus 0.0 in the previous month.
Sample. In this monthly series, there are 187 records in total. The span of time covered by the series stretches from March 2011 to September 2026.
History. Here’s a quick look at a few descriptive statistics we calculated on the entire sample: the diffusion index reached a minimum of -43.5 in April 2020; it recorded its highest level of 35.3 in March 2019; it averaged 11.5.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2026-07-31 | 12.8000 |
| 2026-08-31 | 0 |
| 2026-09-30 | 16.2000 |
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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 | 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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