Human resources professionals and hiring managers in the greater Chicago and south Florida markets project demand for accounting, finance and information technology professionals will remain strong in the second quarter, with the highest spike in open positions and intentions to fill them since the same time last year, according to the second-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.

Businesses report a spike in open accounting, finance and IT positions, while their hiring plans remain shifted toward IT. Further, the recent gains were mainly for multiple positions, with significant increases in the number of companies reporting 10 or more open positions.

"For accounting and finance positions, 45% of survey respondents reported one or more openings, up from 34% last quarter and 39% in last year's hiring forecast for the same period,” Curtin said. “Open IT positions were reported by 44%, up from last quarter's 37% and below the 58%reported the same time last year."

For the next 12 months, 24% of companies surveyed plan to increase IT hiring — unchanged from the first-quarter survey — and 18% plan to increase their accounting/finance hiring, down from 21% last quarter.    

The survey also found 23% of IT firms expect to hire additional temporary professionals, down from 24% in the first-quarter survey and 35% at the same time last year. Of these temporary hires, 14% were needed to cover temporary work; reducing costs of the ACA by hiring temporary IT professionals was mentioned by 6%, which is most likely to represent a type of special project. The next most common reason for hiring temporary professionals was to evaluate their potential for a full-time, permanent position or for in-demand roles, reported by a total of 4% for IT.

For accounting/finance firms, 14% plan to hire additional temporary professionals in the second quarter, down from 17% in the prior quarter.

The survey included almost 300 human resources professionals and hiring managers within the greater Chicago and south Florida market and was conducted between Jan. 22 and Feb. 1, 2016.