Business growth is fueling IT hiring – and that’s a good thing for IT professionals looking for a job or new position. Seventeen percent of executives surveyed by Robert Half Technology for its Technology IT Hiring Index and Skills Report plan to add IT staff in the next three months and 2 percent foresee personnel cutbacks. The net 15 percent increase, the highest since the fourth quarter of 2001, is up three percentage points from the previous quarter's projection. The company surveyed about1,400 CIOs from U.S. companies with 100 or more employees. Some key findings:

• Firms in the Pacific region plan the strongest hiring activity in the third quarter
• Business growth remains the top reason companies are adding IT staff
• Help desk/end-user support is the job category experiencing the most growth
• CIOs in the wholesale sector are most optimistic about employment gains
• The skills in most demand are Microsoft Windows administration (Server 2000/2003), network administration (Cisco, Nortel) and database management (Oracle, SQL Server, DB2).