Wages for U.S. tech jobs fell significantly in the third quarter compared to the same period last year, the IT staffing company Yoh Services said Thursday.

Early in the third quarter, average wages actually went up by 1.86 percent compared to 2007, but ended up dropping 6.21 percent below 2007 levels as the quarter ended, Yoh said.

The Philadelphia company's Index of Technology Wages is released quarterly and covers the aviation, engineering, IT, manufacturing, scientific, telecom and utility sectors.

Yoh arrives at its numbers by taking a sample of the temporary tech labor pool at about 1,000 companies in those areas. The company cautions that while its index "covers a broad number of companies, it is not intended to be an exhaustive survey of employment activity."

Yoh expects softness in wages to continue through the end of the year but the situation may stabilize in early 2009, according to a statement.

Wages in the telecom, health-care and aviation sectors remained steady in the third quarter, while other areas suffered, Yoh said.

Hot tech job titles in the third quarter included Java developer, Oracle database administrator, .NET developer, SAP consultant and firmware/embedded engineer.