Fifth District Survey of Manufacturing Activity: Availability of skills needed: Future (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 future increase minus share forecasting a decrease) was -1.0 in September 2025, versus -12.0 in the previous month.
Sample. There are 136 records in the monthly time series presented in the plot above. The span of time covered by the series stretches from February 2010 to September 2025.
History. Here are some statistics we calculated on the entire sample: the diffusion index hit a minimum of -30.0 in May 2021; it peaked at 14.0 in May 2020; it had an average value of -3.3.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2025-07-31 | 3.0 |
| 2025-08-31 | -12.0 |
| 2025-09-30 | -1.0 |
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Series Metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Description | Diffusion index for the question: Will the availability of skills needed 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 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) |
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