The Technisource information technology employee confidence index dropped in the third quarter to 47.3 from 56.3 in the second quarter, Technisource announced Tuesday.

According to the index’s survey, just 13 percent of the IT workers surveyed believe the economy is getting stronger and/or staying the same, 16 points from the second-quarter survey.

More than half (56 percent) now believe that there are fewer IT jobs available, with only 11 percent being confident that more jobs exist.

Meanwhile, 40 percent of respondents are confident in their ability to find a new job, down only four percentage points from the previous quarter.

However, 61 percent of IT workers remain confident in the future of their current employer, down slightly from 70 percent last quarter.

Despite the lowered confidence in the overall economy, 32 percent of IT professionals are still likely to look for new jobs while in their current position, down just 3 percentage points from the second-quarter survey.

“It appears that current political and financial insecurities have led to a dramatic drop in confidence in our overall economy amongst those in the IT field,” said Technisource President Michael Winwood. “However, these professionals remain very confident in their personal ability to find new jobs and still have a high desire to jump to a better job if available. This trend, combined with the upcoming growth of new IT jobs, means that employers need to focus not only on the future of their talent pool, but on their existing IT teams now more than ever — or risk losing them to competitors.”

The survey was done by Harris Interactive for Technisource, now a part of Randstad.