According to a new report from APEC, the Association for the Employment of Professionals, Managers, and Executives (Association Pour l’Emploi des Cadres), 55% of French companies plan to recruit executives in the second quarter of 2016, which is 5 percentage points higher than a year ago.

Of the 55% of companies that plan to recruit executives, 68% of them are certain to hire. This proportion is particularly high in the IT sector where more than 9 in 10 companies are certain to do so, according to the report.

The IT sector shows the highest forecast at 95% (+11 points compared to last year). In engineering and R&D (research and development), forecasts are also high but are identical to a year ago: 74%. The banking and insurance sector (79%, +8 points) and industrial sector (59%, +4 points) are also bullish. Finally, construction companies have expressed some optimism with forecasts up 3 points to 50%.

The report shows that 86% of companies are looking for managers with 5-10 years experience and 78% for managers with 1-5 years experience.  Meanwhile, 37% of companies plan to hire young graduates, which is 7 points less than a year ago while 44% of companies are interested in executives with over 20 years experience, representing a decrease of 3 points compared to last year.