More top executives say they expect to increase their Bay Area workforce during the next six months than at any time since the dot-com bust of 2001, according to a survey released Wednesday by the Bay Area Council business advocacy group.

Forty-three percent of the 512 top executives queried in April said they planned to hire more workers before the end of the year, the survey found. Forty-eight percent said their companies would maintain current employment levels, while only 8 percent planned reductions, according to the survey.

''It's clearly a bull market for job seekers in the Bay Area,'' said Jim Wunderman, president and chief executive of the Bay Area Council. ''We are in a period of sustained, healthy recovery and we have a pretty strong economy now. There is no question that business leaders looking forward are seeing rosy signs. We might be poised now to see some significant job growth.''

Some economic experts, however, were cautious about whether the survey's optimistic picture would translate into significant job growth.

The survey's numbers have not changed appreciably from the same period last year, when 39 percent of the CEOs surveyed said they expected to hire within the next six months, while about 7 percent predicted layoffs.

There has been recent modest job growth of about 1 percent and a small uptick in venture capital awards, according to Stephen Levy, director of the Center for the Continuing Study of the California Economy in Palo Alto. But the CEOs' confidence often is a better indicator of the state of their company's profits and sales rather than how many new jobs will be created, Levy said.

''Certainly the economy is moving up, but I wouldn't want to overestimate the magnitude in terms of jobs. Sales growth has to hit a pretty rapid clip in most companies to get a hiring increase,'' he said.

According to the survey, the best place to job hunt in the Bay Area appeared to be San Mateo County, where 57 percent of the corporate executives surveyed expected to enlarge their workforce and only 4 percent planned cuts. Cuts are most likely in Santa Clara County, where 12 percent of employers said they'd probably decrease jobs, while 42 percent predicted increases in hiring.

Although companies are expecting to do more hiring, they say it's difficult to attract workers to the pricey Bay Area. About 78 percent of business leaders surveyed in San Mateo County deemed it ''very difficult'' to attract workers because of their area's high housing costs, as did 65 percent of business leaders surveyed in Santa Clara and Alameda counties, according to the survey.

In a sign that competition for employees is increasing, 42 percent of the CEOs said it is more challenging now to find qualified candidates than it was 12 months ago; only 5 percent of the company leaders said finding those workers is easier now than the same time last year.

The Bay Area's high housing costs have made it ''very difficult'' to attract new employees from outside the region, according to 62 percent of the survey's respondents, while 33 percent said it made their job search efforts ''somewhat difficult.''