by Calculated Risk on 4/14/2020 01:08:00 PM

The BLS diffusion index for total private employment was at 36.0 in March, down from 57.9 in February.

For manufacturing, the diffusion index was at 36.8, down from 50.7 in February.

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.

Click on graph for larger image.

Both indexes generally trended down in 2019 - except for a spike up in November - indicating job growth was becoming less widespread across industries (especially manufacturing).

Then both indexes declined sharply in March 2020 due to the impact from COVID-19.