This year's Annual GlobalSpec Industrial Survey of Engineers in the United States shows that the U.S. economy and the tech sector are both well on their way to recovery-and a recovery that may not be jobless, as some people think.

The survey of GlobalSpec's e-newsletter readers found that 30 percent of companies had increased headcount in the first half of 2004, a jump of more than 200 percent over the same period a year ago; 25 percent of companies expect to increase spending on research and development, more than 150 percent higher than the percentage of companies that said they planned to do so in 2003; 41 percent of companies, compared with 19 percent in 2003, are expanding their sales efforts into new markets; and more than half of the companies expect to increase their component and services spending in the second half of 2004, with another 41 percent keeping their current spending Flevel.

Send Tech Notes to Kimberly Griffiths, kgriffiths@reedbusiness.com.