Fifth District Survey of Manufacturing Activity: Capacity utilization: Current (increase vs decrease; diffusion index; percentage points; seasonally adjusted) - 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 adjusted diffusion index for capacity utilization (share of CEOs seeing a recent increase minus share reporting a decrease) stood at -18.0 in September 2025, compared to 1.0 in the previous month.
Sample. There are 259 records overall in the monthly time series shown in the figure above. The series covers the period stretching from January 1997 to September 2025.
History. Here’s a quick look at some simple statistics calculated on the full sample: the diffusion index reached its minimum of -53.0 in April 2020; it hit a peak of 30.0 in March 2004; it had a mean of -0.8.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2025-07-31 | -14.0 |
| 2025-08-31 | 1.0 |
| 2025-09-30 | -18.0 |
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Series Metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Description | Diffusion index for the question: Did capacity utilization 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 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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