Since peaking at 10 percent in October 2009, the U.S. unemployment rate has slowly but continuously declined to where it stands today, at 5.5 percent. However, 9 million Americans remain without a job, a number that could be much lower if those individuals possessed marketable skills. It’s estimated that 5 million jobs are unfulfilled today because skilled workers are not available to fill them. This is a problem U.S. secretary of commerce Penny Pritzker aims to solve. “One of the things that is really important for us to be doing is making sure that we’re training people for the jobs that exist today,” she said in a recent interview. Employers are well aware of the lack of skilled employees. In a 2012 McKinsey & Company study, 45 percent of U.S. employers said that a skills shortage is the main reason entry-level jobs remain open. “Since I've been in this job, I've probably met with 1,500 employers. All of them tell me they have challenges finding the skilled labor they need,” said Pritzker. “We need to do a better job of letting young people, letting families know: What are the careers of the future. What are the skills that are needed? And then where do you go to get those skills?”