Fifth District Survey of Non-Manufacturing Activity: Number of employees: 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 Non-Manufacturing Activity (Richmond FED)
Download Full Dataset (.xlsx)Latest updates. According to recent survey data about nonmanufacturing firms in the Fifth District, the seasonally adjusted diffusion index for the number of employees (share of CEOs seeing a recent increase minus share reporting a decrease) was 2.0 in September 2026, compared to 8.0 in August.
Sample. There are 395 observations in the monthly time series displayed in the plot above. The series covers the period stretching from November 1993 to September 2026.
History. Have a look at a few statistics we calculated on the full sample: the diffusion index had an average value of 3.5; it hit a maximum of 24.0 in January 2000; it hit a minimum of -35.0 in April 2020.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2026-07-31 | 4.00000 |
| 2026-08-31 | 8.00000 |
| 2026-09-30 | 2.00000 |
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Series Metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Description | Diffusion index for the question: Did the number of 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 | 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) |
| Other information | Not available |
Series in the same data set
Discover the other time series included in this data set.