“The U.S. Census Bureau today released additional figures from the 2012 Economic Census Industry Series reports for the manufacturing sector of the economy. This release includes new statistics for semiconductor and related device manufacturing (NAICS 334413). Highlights include:

• The semiconductor and related device manufacturing industry employed 90,244 people in 2012, down 38.3 percent from 146,152 employed in 2007.
• The total value of industry shipments in the semiconductor and related device manufacturing industry was $72.2 billion in 2012.
• The cost of gold and other precious metals used as a material in this industry more than doubled from $149.3 million in 2007 to $372.0 million in 2012, an increase of 149.1 percent.

Highlights of value of product shipment data

• The total value of product shipments in the semiconductor and related device manufacturing industry was $70.7 billion in 2012.
• Memory increased 24.4 percent from $6.0 billion in 2007 to $7.5 billion in 2012.
• Transistors decreased 42.2 percent from $938.0 million in 2007 to $542.0 million in 2012.
• Microprocessors made up 58.6 percent ($41.4 billion) of the total value of product shipments from semiconductors and related devices ($70.7 billion) in 2012.

Current and historical Economic Census data are available via the Census Bureau’s American FactFinder tool. For more information about the Economic Census (including a Release Schedule), visit http://www.census.gov.”