Human resources professionals and hiring managers in the greater Chicago and south Florida markets report fewer unfilled accounting, finance and IT positions compared with the previous quarter, according to the third-quarter accounting, finance and IT hiring forecast study conducted by staffing provider Brilliant and Richard Curtin, professor and director of surveys at the University of Michigan.

Last quarter’s survey found the highest spike in open positions since early 2015, but the bulk of those positions appear to have been filled as the drop in vacancies is being reported moving into the third quarter.

“While a strong pace of hiring reported last quarter has reduced the backlog of unfilled positions for the coming quarter, hiring managers and human resources professionals more frequently reported four or more unfilled positions than a year ago,” Curtin said. “The survey indicates that businesses have kept up with growing needs for more accounting and finance professionals, while the demand for additional IT staff has grown faster than the rate they could locate and hire appropriate candidates.”

Planned hiring for IT is more dominant than for accounting and finance, although most survey takers still reported critical open accounting and finance positions that need to be filled as quickly as possible.

For the next 12 months, 27% of companies surveyed plan to increase IT hiring — up from 24% in the second-quarter survey — and 17% plan to increase their accounting/finance hiring, down slightly from 18% last quarter.    

The survey also found 23% of IT firms expect to hire additional temporary professionals, unchanged from the second-quarter survey but up from 16% in the third quarter 2015 survey. Special projects that only required temporary work played less of a dominate role, down to 6% from 14% in last quarter’s survey, with a rise in the number of businesses using temporary professionals to more fully evaluate candidates for full-time, permanent positions, up to 6% from 3%.

For accounting/finance firms, 15% plan to hire additional temporary professionals in the third quarter, up from 14% in the prior quarter.

The survey included almost 350 human resources professionals and hiring managers within the greater Chicago and south Florida market and was conducted between April 29 and May 2, 2016.