The so-called skills gap usually refers to the short supply of potential employees with the right level of technical skills to be successful in a given position. However, there is also a soft skills gap that is rarely discussed but growing rapidly. A recent study from job market research firm Burning Glass Technologies, which analyzed 25 million online job postings from more than 40,000 sources over the past year, found that more and more employers are specifically requesting that employees have certain base-level competencies. "We tend to focus on technical skill requirements, but the reality is employers are very vocal about the need for people to have foundational or baseline skills," said Matt Sigelman, CEO of Burning Glass. "Even in jobs that are really denominated in technical terms, it's still very important to employers that people have the right soft skills." Across all industries, an average of one in three skills requested in a posting was identified as a baseline skill. For jobs associated with specific technical skills, such as in the healthcare field or information technology sector, one in four skills listed were identified as soft. Communication skills ranked as the highest desired baseline skill across all industries, and writing and organizational skills came in a close second.