50% of CFOs in the IT industry believe the U.S. economy will improve in the next six months, a more bullish outlook than their counterparts in other industries according to a national survey.Half of the CFOs in technology companies believe the economy will improve in the next six months. That's six percent more optimistic than collective perspective of CFOs from other industries according to the findings of a national survey of CEOs released Monday by accounting firm Grant Thornton LLP. The biannual survey was conducted between March 22 and April 5. The survey captured input from 496 CFOs and senior comptrollers in the manufacturing, technology, financial services, health care, banking, government, retail, non-profit, transportation, real estate, and construction industries. Other almost 500 participants, 53 were from the tech sector.

The six month economic outlook wasn't the only area where tech CFOs saw more reason for cheer than those in other industries. 60% of the tech CFOs believed their company's financial prospects would improve in the next six months (52% for all participants) and 37% said the economy would come out of recession in 2010 (28% for all participants). Other industries (24%) plan to raise prices in the next six months at a higher rate (17%) than the tech sector. The other thing not going up in tech is salaries: only 11% of tech CFOs plan to increase salaries compared with 15% across all industries.

Click here to download a PDF of the complete survey findings.

Click here to read about previous Grant Thornton survey results.

Don't Miss: Business Owners See Stockpiling Cash As Best Survival Strategy SMBs Adding Jobs At Fastest Pace In 3 Years Most Software Execs See Rebound This Year SMBs Demand Fast ROI On IT Investments SMBs Loosening up the Purse Strings SMB IT Spending Will Grow, But Slowly, Say Analysts

Follow Benjamin Tomkins on Twitter @http://twitter.com/benjamintomkins Follow InformationWeek SMB on Twitter @http://twitter.com/infoweeksmb Get InformationWeek SMB on your mobile device @http://mobile.bmighty.com