Fifth District Survey of Manufacturing Activity: Availability of skills needed: Current (increase vs decrease; diffusion index; percentage points; seasonally unadjusted) - United States - Richmond FED - Monthly
This series is part of the dataset: Fifth District Survey of Manufacturing Activity (Richmond FED)
Download Full Dataset (.xlsx)Latest updates. According to recent survey data about manufacturing firms in the Fifth District, the seasonally unadjusted diffusion index for the availability of skills needed (share of CEOs seeing a recent increase minus share reporting a decrease) was -10.0 in September 2026, compared to -13.0 in August.
Sample. This monthly time series has 190 data points in total. The time span covered by the series stretches from December 2010 to September 2026.
History. Check out a few statistics computed on the full sample: the diffusion index achieved a maximum of 9.0 in February 2015; it hit a minimum of -45.0 in May 2021; it had an average value of -7.8.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2026-07-31 | -15.0000 |
| 2026-08-31 | -13.0000 |
| 2026-09-30 | -10.0000 |
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Series Metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Description | Diffusion index for the question: Did the availability of skills needed 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 Richmond |
| 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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