U.S. Semiconductor Industry Boosts Workforce
According to the United States Department of Labour, Bureau of Labour Statistics, State and County Employment and Wages Database, total direct U.S. semiconductor employment is estimated at 244,800.
This total comprises workers in all major occupations in the U.S. semiconductor industry.
It includes BLS's reported total for semiconductor employees in the U.S. manufacturing sector, plus an estimate for the number of semiconductor workers employed by semiconductor "fabless" firms, which BLS counts in the wholesale trade sector, not the manufacturing sector.
This is according to employment data, into the manufacturing sector of the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) which it uses to categorise data by industries. This initiative is called the Factoryless Goods Producer (FGP) initiative and is scheduled for full implementation by the 2017 Economic Census.
Compared to all other electronic component industries in the United States, the U.S. semiconductor industry employs the greatest number of U.S. workers. According to BLS,in 2011, total employment for all U.S. electronic component manufacturing industries, including semiconductors, was 383,513.
This number is based on total employment for 2011 reported under NAICS code 3344, described as "Semiconductor and other electronic component manufacturing." United States Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, State and County Employment and Wages Database.
Of this total, semiconductor manufacturing employment totaled 188,358, or 49 percent, by far the largest share of all U.S. electronic component manufacturing industries (see the figure above). This total does not include employees of fabless semiconductor firms, which design semiconductors but do not manufacture them.
The U.S. semiconductor industry's manufacturing workforce grew by 3.7 percent in 2011, according to BLS data. In comparison, jobs throughout the broader U.S. economy increased by 1.2 percent over the same time period.4 U.S. semiconductor industry employment in the manufacturing sector alone reached over 188,358, an increase of 6,690 jobs from the previous year (the figure below).
This total does not include employees of fabless semiconductor firms. This is a significant increase, given that the unemployment rate in the broader U.S. economy has remained high.
Total U.S. Semiconductor Manufacturing Sector Employment, 2010 and 2011
In the interim, SIA has created an estimate for total fabless employment captured outside of the manufacturing NAICS codes and included it with the manufacturing NAICS employment data to arrive at the total of 244,800.
SIA estimates that approximately 56,400 fabless semiconductor jobs are counted outside of the manufacturing NAICS codes. This number is added to the approximately 188,400 semiconductor jobs in the NAICS industry code to arrive at the total of 244,800 U.S. semiconductor jobs in 2011.
