Insight 10: Green Shoots of Recovery in the ICT Industry? Hardware has declined much more than services. From analysis of global ICT fi rms, hardware sectors have been more negatively affected by the economic crisis than IT, software and Internet-related services. Semiconductor, electronics, communications and IT equipment have been particularly affected by slowing business and consumer demand. The communica-tions The ICT industry had a tough start to 2009, with almost all Q1 2009 indicators in decline, often very sharply. In some sectors, year-on-year performance testied lows last reached in 2001-2002. However the ICT industry is performing better throughout this crisis than some other industries (for example, than the automobile industry) and there are tentative signs of recovery, with the rate of decline bottoming out and turning up, positive month-on-month growth for most countries and inventories running down sharply. The semiconductor industry is a bell-weather for developments in the ICT industry. Semiconduc-tor equipment sector is feeling the pressure of the downturn, despite continuing investments in broad-band. ICT employment has trended downwards, but not as rapidly as for example in automobiles. There have been announcements of major lay-offs in the semi-conductor production fell rapidly at end 2008 and in Q1 2009, with capacity use dropping towards 50% and semiconductor equipment manufacturers seeing very rapid falls in orders. However, there are been a recent sharp upturn in month-on-month semiconductor billings. and electronics sectors, with fewer job losses in IT services, software, and Internet-related activities. However, employment data for the ICT sector are still patchy and the net effects of these 60