Nearly three quarters (73 percent) of U.S. companies expect an increase in their demand for "middle skills" jobs over the next few years, according to a recent report (November 2014), "Bridge the Gap: Rebuilding America's Middle Skills," published by Accenture, Burning Glass Technologies, and Harvard Business School. Middle skills jobs are defined as those that require more education and training than a high school diploma but less than a four-year college degree. More than half (56 percent) of those surveyed are struggling to find people with the qualifications to fill existing middle skills vacancies.

The research is the first to analyze the U.S.'s middle skills jobs market data with a focus on competitiveness. "This is the single most important issue to strength U.S. competitiveness, and bring back the American dream for our workers," said Joe Fuller, a senior lecturer at Harvard Business School, and lead author of the report.

According to the report: "While millions of aspiring workers remain unemployed and an unprecedented percentage of the workforce report being underemployed, employers across industries and regions find it hard to fill open positions. The market for middle skills jobs is consistently failing to clear."