Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization:
The 2008 Annual Revision
Figure 6. Capacity utilization: Selected high-technology industries, January 1996-June 2008. The figure has three panels; each panel shows the revised and previous utilization rates for the selected high-technology industries; the data are plotted as curves. Ratio scale, percent. The top panel covers computers and peripheral equipment, the middle panel covers communications equipment, and the bottom panel covers semiconductors and related electronic components. Each panel has a shaded region for the 2001 recession as defined by the National Bureau of Economic Research. The revised operating rate for computers and peripherals showed the same trends as the previously published rate, but some of the high-frequency movements were different. On balance, the operating rate fell between 1996 and 2001 and increased afterward. The operating rate for communications equipment was revised to be lower in 2005 and 2007 but otherwise was similar to the earlier estimates. Utilization increased in the second half of the 1990s, fell substantially through 2002, and has trended up since then. The operating rate for semiconductors and related electronic components was revised to be higher, averaging about 80 percent, in 2007 and 2008. Historically, the figure shows peaks in 1997 and 2000 at about 90 percent and 96 percent respectively. The trough in 1998 was about 75 percent, and the trough in early 2002 was about 60 percent.