Electronic component shipments are divided up into US shipments, US orders, worldwide semiconductor sales, and N. American semi sales. Regular components are still selling; it's only the semiconductors that are in trouble. Ubnfortunately, this is what people on the stock market follow, because they aren't thinking about capacitors and resistors and so on--all they know is that there are some high powered chips somewhere that power things (okay, not the greatest attempt at reading the mind of a broker, but I *did* work with them for a while after high school).
Communications equipment especially is going strong. We are mostly involved in design engineering, primarily for automotive projects. We are overloaded with work, which means (I think) that, even if there is a downturn now, it won't be forever. Either that, or all the work we're doing now for cars yet to be made will be useless! At least we get paid now, and not in the year 2001 (most of the stuff we are under pressure to complete last week is for development of systems for automobiles in the years 2000-2003).
There are all sorts of interesting graphs, but I don't have a scanner. Will try to look this stuff up another time. I don't know how all of you ever get anything done considering the amount of thought that seems to go into this list! Oh well, back to work for me. Julie julie at siliconengines-ltd.com