Though the overall U.S. unemployment rate remains high at around 9 percent, the rate for technology pros is below 4 percent, according to tech job site Dice, thanks to a recent surge in hiring.

And that surge is expected to continue, according to a recent Dice survey. Among the 900 hiring managers and recruiters recently polled by Dice, 65 percent expect to hire more IT professionals during the second half of 2011 than during the preceding six months.

Dice notes that technology jobs are staying open for months at a time as a result of a shortage of qualified applicants. Among the managers surveyed who say that jobs are taking longer to fill, 63 percent of them point to shortages in qualified talent as the main reason, compared with just 46 percent who said the same thing six months ago.

Managers and recruiters in the East and Midwest are finding it especially difficult to find the right people as two-thirds of them report having to hire talent from outside their local regions in order to fill certain jobs.

What are some of the toughest positions to fill? Those in the East cited Java and mobile developers, SAP professionals, .Net programmers, and security experts with the necessary security clearance. Those in the Midwest also pointed to SharePoint professionals.

The tight job market is helping to bump up pay scales, according to Dice. Almost half of the managers and recruiters surveyed said that salaries were “slightly” or “significantly” on the increase for new hires, up from 29 percent who said that six months ago.

Almost a third of the recruiters questioned expect to look externally rather than internally to find the right IT talent over the rest of the year, compared with 29 percent in November. Companies are also searching for people with experience. Dice reports that most of those polled are seeking professionals with 6 to 10 years of experience, followed by people with two to five years, and then finally those with 10 or more years of experience.