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(CFOZone) By Hilary Johnson

The first quarter of next year will see the strongest IT hiring in a year in the U.S., according to staffing firm Robert Half. Seven percent of chief information officers surveyed said that they will add staff, while 4 percent expect to reduce headcount, a net result that's three points higher than last quarter, according to Robert Half Technology's IT Hiring Index and Skills Report.

It's also the most optimistic forecast since the first quarter of 2009, Robert Half said in a release today. The firm noted that 89 percent of CIOs plan to maintain current personnel levels.

Wholesale and retail industry CIOs are even more interested than other industry executives in hiring additional help, based on their need for better customer/end user support. A net 16 percent of CIOs in wholesale companies plan to add employees, while a net 8 percent of retail CIOs plan to hire.

IT executives in the healthcare industry are also more bullish on hiring than other industries, with 16 percent of CIOs surveyed saying they plan to hire additional employees, and just 3 percent expecting to cut back.

The new IT employees will mostly be full-time, the Robert Half survey results showed, and they will likely be used to help complete IT projects next quarter. Across all industries, 42 percent of CIOs are confident their companies will invest in IT projects in the first quarter of 2010, Robert Half said. When it comes to healthcare, more than half (55 percent) of CIOs surveyed said they are confident that their companies will invest in IT projects next quarter, likely spurred by the move to electronic records.

The study is based on more than 1,400 telephone interviews with CIOs from a random sample of U.S. companies with 100 or more employees.

Comments (2)

	1. 12-02-2009 11:03
	How's this for an influx of IT jobs? Indian IT services provider Infosys has announced plans to add 1,000 employees in the U.S. That's almost twice the company's current U.S. workforce. Registered

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	2. 12-08-2009 08:54
	On the face of it, projections that just seven percent of CIOs plan to hire in the first quarter of 2010 doesn't seem like much.    But the overall results of the study are encouraging -- including how 89% of CIOs plan to maintain current personnel levels (rather than cut) and how there's an uptick in hiring among organizations in wholesale, retail and healthcare.    It appears that business conditions are beginning to stabilize and IT/business projects are becoming unleashed. Registered

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