For instance, between the first to second quarter of this year, the unemployment rate of computer hardware engineers went from 4.4% to 0.5%. For software developers, the unemployment rate shrank from 3.6% to 2.5% over the same period.

However, for computer support specialists, the unemployment rate over the two quarters rose from 7.1% to 8.2%.

Mark Roberts, CEO of TechServe, said the category for specific labor data has to viewed with caution because of the sample size, "but it definitely shows a tightening supply."

Janco conducts ongoing surveys of CIOs to assess their hiring goals, and Victor Janulaitis, CEO of Janco, said that many CIOs are cautious "but feel that overall hiring will improve significantly in 2013 and are initially budgeting accordingly."

Patrick Thibodeau covers SaaS and enterprise applications, outsourcing, government IT policies, data centers and IT workforce issues for Computerworld. Follow Patrick on Twitter at , or subscribe to . His e-mail address is .