Information-technology workers' confidence jumped to 56.8 in the third quarter for an increase of 5.1 points from the second quarter, according to the IT Employee Confidence Index conducted by Harris Interactive on behalf of Randstad Technologies and Technisource.

The confidence level among IT workers is the highest in comparison to all other sectors: health care, finance and accounting, manufacturing, administrative and clerical, and engineering.

"Technology workers were more optimistic about nearly all confidence measures this quarter, including the strength of the economy, the availability of jobs and overall employability," says Bob Dickey, executive vice president of technologies at Randstad U.S. "This is not surprising given the future outlook for this sector, which remains bright and encouraging. In fact, according to a recent TechServe Alliance report, from the first quarter to second quarter of 2012, the unemployment rate for computer hardware engineers went from 4.4 percent to 0.5 percent. Similarly, for software developers, the unemployment rate declined from 3.6 percent to 2.5 percent.