There's still plenty of gloom and doom news on the economy: The unemployment rate is close to 9 percent, and big tech companies, including Microsoft and Yahoo, are handing pink slips to many workers. But a new survey we report on this week finds there is plenty of optimism out there. More than 50 percent of the executives queried say they are currently hiring for IT jobs.

And if the experts' predictions are true, the recession likely will end this year, and there will be no shortage of jobs for qualified IT personnel. With all this in mind, however, companies are still running lean operations, eliminating projects that are not essential and consolidating where they can.

What does this mean for you? The time is not yet ripe to change jobs. But if you are out of one, you might have a little more luck finding a position because many companies are still looking for IT talent to keep their companies revved up and running. - Judi