Human resources professionals and hiring managers in the accounting/finance and information technology sectors expect the pace of business growth to accelerate in the year ahead and plan to increase their hiring of accounting/finance and IT professionals as a result, according to the fourth-quarter accounting, finance and IT hiring forecast study conducted by Brilliant and Richard Curtin, professor and director of surveys at the University of Michigan.

The majority of survey respondents, 54 percent, reported that the overall economic situation of their companies had improved during the past year, up from 43 percent in the third-quarter forecast and 32 percent in the forecast for the fourth quarter of 2013.

Additionally, 28 percent of survey respondents plan to increase the hiring of accounting/finance professionals and 34 percent plan to hire more IT professionals in the fourth quarter. Only 3 percent planned to decrease the hiring of accounting/finance professionals, down from 9 percent last quarter, and no companies reported a decrease in hiring IT staff.

“One in three companies surveyed plan to increase the overall size of their accounting, finance and IT departments,” Curtin said. “And, a significant number of them anticipated hiring more temporary, temp-to-hire and contract employees in the year ahead.”

Among those surveyed, 16 percent reported that they plan to increase the number of temporary accounting/finance staff, identical to the previous quarter, and 18 percent expected to increase their temporary IT staffing.

Respondents' hiring plans for the next 12 months for accounting and finance staff:

• Significantly increase: 3 percent
• Increase: 25 percent
• Unchanged: 67 percent
• Decrease: 3 percent
• Significantly decrease: 0 percent
• Uncertain: 2 percent

Respondents' hiring plans for the next 12 month for IT staff:

• Significantly increase: 4 percent
• Increase: 30 percent
• Unchanged: 54 percent
• Decrease: 9 percent
• Significantly decrease: 0 percent
• Uncertain: 12 percent

The survey included almost 250 human resources professionals, hiring managers and other decision makers. It was conducted between Aug. 15 and Sept. 8, 2014.