Manufacturing Business Outlook Survey: Number of employees: Current (increase vs decrease; diffusion index; percentage points; seasonally unadjusted) - United States - Philly FED - Monthly
This series is part of the dataset: Manufacturing Business Outlook Survey (Philly FED)
Download Full Dataset (.xlsx)Latest updates. According to recent survey data about manufacturing firms in the Third Federal Reserve District, the seasonally unadjusted diffusion index for the number of employees (share of CEOs seeing a recent increase minus share reporting a decrease) stood at 3.6 in September 2025, compared to 0.0 in August 2025.
Sample. There are 689 observations in the monthly time series presented in the plot above. The series covers the period going from May 1968 to September 2025.
History. Take a look at a few simple statistics computed on the whole sample: the diffusion index was equal on average to 2.1; it recorded its maximum of 45.7 in April 2022; it recorded a bottom of -48.8 in March 2009.
Latest values
| Date | Value - Percentage points |
|---|---|
| 2025-07-31 | 6.7 |
| 2025-08-31 | 0.0 |
| 2025-09-30 | 3.6 |
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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 | No |
| Rescaling | None |
| Frequency | Monthly |
| Unit | Percentage points |
| Source | Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia |
| 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.