Human resources professionals and hiring managers in the greater Chicago and south Florida markets expect to expand their businesses in the coming quarter by hiring additional accounting, finance and IT professionals, according to the first-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. Open IT positions increased from last quarter’s hiring forecast, while recent hires reduced the num­ber of open accounting/finance positions.

“One-third of survey respondents reported unfilled accounting, finance or IT positions,” Curtin said. “The biggest change from last quarter was how the unfilled positions shifted towards IT. Thirty-seven percent reported open IT positions, up from 33% in the previous quarter.”

For the next 12 months, 24% of companies surveyed plan to increase IT hiring — up from 12% in the fourth quarter survey — and 21% plan to increase their accounting/finance hiring, up from 20% last quarter.    

The survey also found 24% of IT firms expect to hire additional temporary professionals, up from 10% in the fourth-quarter survey. Most of these temporary hires, 18%, were necessary to cover special projects that only required profession­als for a limited time. 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 6% for IT.

For accounting/finance firms, 17% plan to hire additional temporary professionals in the first quarter, up from 12% in the prior quarter’s hiring forecast and 15% a year ago. The five percentage point gain from last quarter can be attributed to a need to accomplish special projects or in-demand roles that needed to be filled, according to the report.

The survey included almost 400 human resources professionals and hiring managers within the greater Chicago and south Florida market and was conducted between Oct. 29 and Nov. 11, 2015.