Oregon: A Semiconductor Industry On A Small-Business Base
The Census Bureau's 2023 County Business Patterns counted 122,451 employer establishments in Oregon, and 95.6% of them have fewer than 50 employees. Business Oregon, the state's economic development agency, counts 172 business establishments with covered payroll employment in 2022 in semiconductor manufacturing, up from 108 back in 2002, and nearly 34,000 high paying jobs in the sector. That is context for the supplier and fabrication ecosystem west of the city, not a claim about any particular shop's workload. What the numbers do say is that the state economy looks a lot like a metro full of small firms with big-industry neighbors.
- U.S. Census Bureau: 2023 County Business Patterns: State file (cbp23st) (2023 CBP; retrieved 2026-10-05)
- Business Oregon: Oregon Chips (1859 Onward blog) (2023-06-16 article with 2022 payroll data; retrieved 2026-10-08)