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 survey data about manufacturers collected by the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, the seasonally unadjusted diffusion index for the availability of skills needed (share of CEOs seeing a recent increase minus share reporting a decrease) was -3.0 in September 2025, versus -13.0 in the previous month.
Sample. There are 136 observations overall in the monthly time series presented in the graph above. The series covers the period stretching from February 2010 to September 2025.
History. Here's a glimpse of some descriptive statistics we computed on the full sample: the diffusion index hit a trough of -45.0 in May 2021; it reached a maximum of 8.0 in February 2010; it had an average value of -7.7.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2025-07-31 | -1.0 |
| 2025-08-31 | -13.0 |
| 2025-09-30 | -3.0 |
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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
Discover the other time series included in this data set.