Wake up and good morning. Anybody who's been to one of Fritz Eichelberger's "Pure and Shameless" area tech socials over the years knows that Fritz the Host wears the easy-to-be-seen, yellow Tommy Bahama shirt. Such was the case on the evening of April 22 when Fritz (who's dropped some serious weight, the lucky dog) held his last techno-soiree attended by 250 or so at Tampa's Blue Martini at International Plaza. This photo, supplied by Fritz, shows the yellowy host flanked by Joel Lopez in the pink shirt, who is CEO of 2ZConsulting.com, and Greg Leonardo, Net developer.

I mention these socials because they are a good draw of a very diverse technology workforce here who attend to have a drink, chill and, of course, network. Fritz rattles off the mix of typical attendees: "all levels of IT – Developers (iPhone, Android, C#, Java, C++, etc.), QA, managers, CIOs, Project Managers, Interactive/SEO/SEM marketers, administrators, systems analysts, PMOs, tech writers, analysts, DBAs..."

As you might guess, Fritz has been doing  these geek gigs for years -- here's a column I wrote about one tech social he threw at St. Pete's BayWalk (when BayWalk was hopping) way back in 2001 (remember the Tech Bubble?). Because Fritz is also a tech headhunter (here's his website), he has a pretty good feel for the market in this recession.

And Fritz is pretty bullish. "As for the local job market, this is the best job market I’ve seen in 33 months," he said after his April social. "I’m averaging 20+ people interviewing for me on a weekly basis for the 5-6 weeks. I am juggling well over 30 local openings plus jobs in Chicago, San Francisco, NY/NJ and Dallas." He added:

 "The demand this early in the hiring cycle is mostly for developers (C#, java, C++, embedded, .Net, iPhone & Android), healthcare compliance PMs, senior IT sales and online marketers," he said. "Things are just starting to pick up for roles in IT, products and marketing."

Not that all is booming. "Be glad you’re not a CIO/VP," he warned. "The net reduction of CIO/VP jobs across Central Florida has been brutal for the last 24 months."

On Twitter (Fritz tweets as: fritz_hotspaces), he said Tuesday he was interviewed by WFLA TV about the hiring market at a client, Bayshore Solutions. The segment, he said, runs Wednesday -- today.

-- Robert Trigaux, Times Business Columnist