The bi-annual survey from Dice.com, a career website for technology and engineering professionals, found that 45 percent of the respondents expect their hiring levels to stay the same or increase during the first six months of 2010.

Dice.com concluded that this is good news given that six month ago, the same survey suggested eight in 10 companies were going to decrease hiring. Yet the survey of 850 human resource professionals and recruiters also found that 48 percent of the respondents anticipate cutbacks in hiring, a number Dice.com said is still too high.

"It's still a mixed and uncertain hiring environment and challenges will persist in 2010. However, we've seen applications per job moderate slightly from the first quarter of this year, as well as the job count on Dice moving up from its low," said Tom Silver, senior vice president of Dice.com. "To us, these tentative improvements in supply and demand indicate the market for technology professionals is leveling out," said Silver.

Companies headquartered in the eastern and southern regions of the country were the most optimistic about hiring, with the West and Midwest lagging.  The sectors with the biggest hiring demand for technology professionals in 2010 were healthcare, finance and government.

More than eight in 10 respondents indicated that they would be hiring at least one position in the next three months. But technology professionals shouldn't expect better pay or a quick process.

For new hires, nine in 10 companies said salaries are flat to down as compared to last year and 50 percent of hiring managers indicated that the time to fill a position is still longer than this time last year.

For more on the Dice survey:
- see their report