Information technology hiring in southwest Ohio will surpass the national average for the second quarter of 2013, according to figures released Tuesday by Robert Half Technology, a professional placement firm with offices in Dayton and Cincinnati.

Fifteen percent of Cincinnati-area chief information officers (CIOs) plan to expand their IT staffs in the second quarter, compared to 14 percent nationally, according to a Robert Half survey.

“The companies that were conservative back a year or two years ago are now starting to need those IT people that they held off on hiring,” said Tim Webb, regional vice president for Robert Half Technology.

The health care, financial and service sectors are seeing the greatest IT hiring growth, Webb said.

Three percent of Cincinnati-area CIOs plan to reduce their IT staffs, compared to 2 percent nationally. Overall, regional IT hiring remains steady, Webb said.

The unemployment rate for applications developers, database developers and database administrators is close to 1 percent, according to Webb. “They are not out there; there is a scarcity of those resources available,” he said.

Companies are willing to pay premium rates for IT professionals with specific skills such as .Net and java, said Ann Gallaher, chief operating officer of Technology First, a regional IT trade association.

“The shortage in these skills is a national problem due to the recent demand for mobile and web applications,” Gallaher said. Technology First is working with Sinclair Community College to address the shortage locally, she said.

Salaries for mobile applications developers range from $90,000 to $130,000 in Cincinnati, and $81,000 to $116,000 in Dayton, according to Robert Half Technology.

Gallaher said companies also are paying premium rates for SQL server database skills and Oracle enterprise resource planning (ERP). “Wright-Patterson Air Force Base has been a large consumer of the Oracle ERP skill set,” she said.

Area companies currently looking to fill IT positions include Yaskawa Motoman, Lighthouse Technologies, WinWholesale, Premier Health Partners, Valued Relationship, Swift Technologies and Quanexus, Gallaher said.