Companies gripe about employee skills, do little about it

There are about 5.7 million unfilled jobs in the U.S., many requiring specific skills, but two thirds of companies complaining of the absence of trained workers— everyone from welders to data engineers — are doing little or nothing about it, according to a new study.

In a report earlier this month, the U.S. Business Roundtable, an association of American corporate CEOs, called the "skills gap" a "national crisis affecting our national future," one likely to stretch ahead a decade or more. Companies like IBM and JP Morgan are running education and training programs. But a study by CompTIA, an association of technologists, says more than half of the companies it surveyed said they struggle even to holistically assess added skills they require.

Bottom line: "The outlook for progress is bleak," the study says, when those in need of skilled workers not only are doing nothing about it, but don't fully understand what ails them.