College students graduating next spring will enter an improving job market, according to the findings of a study conducted by researchers at Michigan State University,released earlier this month. According to the survey results, job opportunities for new college graduates are expected to increase 6 to 14 percent.

Phil Gardner, director of the Collegiate Employment Research Institute at MSU and author of the study, told The Daily Free Press he was encouraged by the results of the study. As long as the economy holds together, we will probably see these numbers this spring, he said.

“Beginning January 2001, the college-level market plummeted,” he said. “There was a 20 percent increase in job opportunities last year. The increase this spring is building on a really good year last year. We are pretty confident that we are going to see a pretty good market.”

Of the 878 companies nationwide that responded to the survey, 41 percent of companies said they will hire aggressively, while 51 percent of companies said they are uncertain about whom they plan to hire.

Many companies, especially in the Southeast, cited uncertainty about the long-term economic effect of this year’s active hurricane season as the reason why they cannot make firm projections about future hiring.

Gardner said that this is the 35th year that MSU has conducted this study on improvements in the job market, and it is his eighth year heading the survey.

“It has been a long-term project that we do every year,” he said.

Gardner said MSU is seeing a lot of sales-related positions coming in for graduating seniors.

The study also found that nearly 50 percent of employers are looking to recruit graduates to fill positions in sales and marketing, mainly in engineering, education and retail.

Boston is one of the cities recovering from several years of a sluggish economy that is expected to enjoy a strong labor market next year, Gardner said in an MSU press release. “While employers still want business and engineering graduates, employers who are seeking to fill consulting, research information, management and e-commerce positions want to talk to all majors, particularly liberal arts graduates who know how to do research,” Gardner said in the release.

But some fields, including manufacturing, information services, education, health services and nonprofit organizations, are planning to lower their recruitment, according to the survey results.

According to an article in The Chronicle of Higher Education, employers who were surveyed are most interested in hiring students who majored in accounting, civil engineering, environmental engineering, electrical engineering, nursing and pharmacy.

Anne Nowill, director of employer relations at Northeastern University Career Services, said she is noticing an increase in recruitment calls.

“I think that there seems to be more opportunities this year for graduating students than last year just because of the number of companies that have called looking to recruit students,” she said.