The oil and gas industry could see more hiring activity in the first half of this year than in the previous six months, according to a new survey by Rigzone. Fifty-three percent of those surveyed said they would hire more personnel in the first half of 2014 — that’s up from the 48% who responded the same way in a similar Rigzone survey last June. Twice as many managers expect the pace of hiring to slow down between January and June, but that still only represents 12% of all surveyed. Rigzone President Paul Caplan said in a statement that companies are placing their highest priorities on engineers, health and safety professionals and production teams. Survey respondents included managers and recruiters in the upstream, midstream and downstream sectors and college recruiters.