For immediate release
Contact: Joey Lee, Media Relations, 215-574-3840
Philadelphia, PA — In January of each year, the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia revises historical data for the Manufacturing Business Outlook Survey. Because survey responses are characterized by seasonal patterns, new seasonal factors are calculated annually based on the addition of a complete year of data.
While this year's revisions altered levels of the indexes for most months, the direction of month-to-month changes in most series was similar. For the current general activity index, the average absolute difference between the originally released data and the revisions was 2.2 points. The index trended down over the last 5 months of the year. For December 2019, the index was revised up slightly, from 0.3 to 2.4.
Revised historical data for all series can be retrieved from the historical data page.
A summary of 2019 revisions only (102 KB) is also available.
The next scheduled release of the Manufacturing Business Outlook Survey is at 8:30 a.m. on Thursday, January 16, 2020.