Companies must acknowledge their responsibility in helping people keep their skill sets up to date. But it's also in their best interest. (Image: Shutterstock)

It's well-documented that companies are struggling to hire enough new workers, but historically low unemployment is only part of the problem. The bigger challenge is finding people who are actually qualified for the jobs employers are trying to fill. This disconnect between the skills companies want and the skills job-seekers have is what's known as the skills gap.

Everyone can agree there is a skills gap—81 percent of U.S. employees said so, in Udemy's 2018 Skills Gap Report—but there's less agreement about how we fix it. Before we can devise effective solutions, we need to dispel several myths and misunderstandings.

Myth 1: It's a pipeline problem for schools to solve.

Of course, today's school students will be tomorrow's employees, and our education system must prepare them for that eventuality, even if many will be in jobs that don't yet exist. But it's exactly because the future of work is so unknown that we can't rely on schools to do all the heavy lifting.