Friday, October 8, 2010

Oh, Joy

Diffusion Indexes

This is a little more technical ...

Employment Diffusion IndexThe BLS diffusion index for total private employment declined to 49.8 from 54.1 in August. For manufacturing, the diffusion index declined to 46.3 from 48.2 in August.

Both indexes are down sharply from earlier this year.

Think of this as a measure of how widespread job gains are across industries. The further from 50 (above or below), the more widespread the job losses or gains reported by the BLS. From the BLS
Figures are the percent of industries with employment increasing plus one-half of the industries with unchanged employment, where 50 percent indicates an equal balance between industries with increasing and decreasing employment.

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