With high-tech industry hit by the Global economic crisis there was a lot of difficult news throughout the sector associated with hardware sales plunge and payrolls cuts. However, at the turn it seems that the damage wasn't as bad as it was predicted, and recently released data suggest that IT managers expect to increase budgets in next year.

From 243 companies surveyed by the Society of Information Management (SIM), only 28% of IT executives plan to cut their budgets, while 27% predicted an increase. Another survey conducted by the Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA) found that 48% of 200 U.S based IT organizations expect to increase their R&D investments and raise their tech spending over next 6 months. While 29% of surveyed revealed the plans to increase their payroll.

In the tech industry it was slightly better situation with jobs than in other industries, mainly due to the effort of IT managers to keep employees rather than buying new hardware. The portion of IT budgets allocated hardware declined to 33% versus 42% in previous year. Many companies also increase the use of outsourcing services. However, the worse figures appear in IT jobs loss when industries outside the tech industry are included as well. In June, IT employment was at 3.8 million, for a year-over-year decline of about 5%.

Some experts forecast a gradual recovery associated with the federal government's economic recovery bill -- the nearly $800 billion measure approved earlier this year -- that will soon be kicking in. That bill includes large sums for tech IT spending, especially in health care and broadband deployment.

Jerry Luftman, a distinguished professor and director of information systems programs at the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, who conducted survey for SIM said the data shows that IT managers expected 2010 budget less bad than past year, but not what it was before recession. "IT managers are not completely sure what type of recovery U, V or W it might be", he said.

In this way, Tim Herbert, vice president of market research at CompTIA sees a shallow U shaped recovery, partly because the tech-industry wasn't hit as hard as some other industries. "It is not going to have same sharp increase that a few other industries are now experiencing" he said.