If you're in the information-technology space, the job market should be good - albeit perhaps not great - for the rest of the year, according to a couple of recent surveys.

One conducted for the California staffing firm Robert Half Technology, says a net 9% of area chief information officers plan to hire techies in the fourth quarter of this year. That's down one point from the third quarter.

All told, some 17% of CIO's plan to add staff between October and December, and 8% expect personnel reductions, according to Robert Half (www.rtf.com).

But the vast majority of the 200 CIOs sampled -75%- plan no staff changes. The CIOs represent companies with 100 employees or more.

The takeaway: Hiring plans appear "more conservative," Robert Half says. But demand overall is still there, especially for hot areas like Web developments and network administration.

Meanwhile, the InSource Group, a tech staffing firm with offices in Dallas and Phoenix, found in a national survey of large companies that 66% of new hires will be full time, the remainder contractors.

Of that group, about half will hire more than 25 workers, and more than a third plan to bring aboard 100 or more. (the survey examined firms with more than 500 employees and $100 million-plus in revenue).

Of the 1,300 companies surveyed, "45% or more of the IT staff will be full time, while more than half of respondents will use contractors for less than 20% of their IT staffing needs," InSource says on a news release. www.insourcegroup.com)

The study, done by Dallas' TransSynergy Group, also reveals that companies want to hire both full-timers and contractors to save money. (albeit not at once)

Contractor rates can be high, but those folks don't require benefits, payroll taxes, salaries and severances. Firms that bring contractors aboard do so when they need to respond quickly to the market demands and changing technology and don't want to deal with the expensive and hassles of full-time help, InSource says.

Contract Renewal

Beckett Media, a Dallas publisher of periodicals about collectibles, has re-upped its information technology services contract with crosstown Technicource. The deal is worth 2.3 million over the next three years.

In addition to the IT services, Technisource will also improve Beckett's e-commerce Website. See www.technisource.coma and www.beckett.com.