For the first time since such record-keeping began in 2000, the number of job openings has exceeded the number of jobless.

U.S. job openings rose to 6.7 million, the Labor Department reported on June 5, compared with 6.3 million unemployed. The last time America confronted a combination of low unemployment and high job openings was in 1969 when the country was in the midst of the Vietnam War.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, a “job opening” is a specific position that needs to be filled at a business within the next 30 days and the employer is recruiting for the position.

So demand for workers is high.

But since 2009 our total employment has not grown evenly across skill levels. Specifically, many employers have begun requiring its new workers have skills that aren’t available in the labor pool.

In particular, health care, finance and information technology businesses have required many more skilled laborers than are available, compared with the situation before the Great Recession, when job growth was much higher in traditional blue-collar industries such as manufacturing, transportation and construction.

There are a couple of low-skill sectors in which job openings are plentiful. Unfortunately, they are two of the lowest-paying. There were 844,000 accommodation and food-service jobs open in April and 735,000 unfilled retail positions.

But the largest number of openings in April, 1.3 million, was in the services sector, which includes everything from accountants and software developers to temporary staffers and clerical workers.

The growth in these higher-skilled jobs has led to a skills mismatch. Available workers frequently do not possess the skills that are in demand. Businesses require workers with better education and training.

So we need to do more than just make education and training available. Many students need help to be able to attend school, including financial aid, dependent care and transportation. These needs, although growing, aren’t new. The logistical challenges of finding meaningful jobs for an unemployed worker in Appalachia have confronted policymakers since the Great Depression.

Because our workforce is aging, the supply of potential workers has declined.

The share of Americans who are working or seeking work has declined for almost two decades.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, it was 67 percent in 2000 and now is 62.8 percent. That gives employers fewer potential workers to draw from but also suggests there remain hundreds of thousands of Americans who could be drawn back into the labor force with the right incentives.

I find it exhilarating to see what local communities are doing in such places as Illinois and Kentucky. Employers are discovering that partnerships with education and training providers are well worth the investment. In the 2014-’15 school year, more than 400,000 public high school and community college students in Illinois were enrolled in a broad array of career and technical education programs.

Because Louisville, Kentucky, lacked enough technology talent to become a finalist for Amazon’s second headquarters, city leaders supported a program called Interapt Skills. The company taught students the basics of computer programming with either the Swift or Java languages. Students experienced a project-based, Silicon Valley-style environment with professional programmers. They broke down the project into tasks and learned the skills needed to complete them.

Ziprecruiter.com seems to be a promising way to match companies with job openings and job seekers. The website advertises that it sends your job to 100-plus sites, “identifies the best candidates and notifies them to apply.”

If required, we should compensate employers who train new employees to fulfill the job skill needs of their openings. By emphasizing the role of employers, we will motivate unemployed people to upgrade their levels to meet the specific needs of the company that is training them.

Given today’s tight labor market, with a little ingenuity, I think we could reduce the number of unemployed by 1 million.

Originally published in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune