A recent CareerBuilder study on the skills gap in the U.S. labor market shows almost 60 percent of employers spend 12 weeks or longer searching for skilled candidates for job openings, at an average annual cost of $800,000, according to human resources managers.

"The gap between the number of jobs posted each month and the number of people hired is growing larger as employers struggle to find candidates to fill positions at all levels within their organizations," said CareerBuilder CEO Matt Ferguson, who co-authored The Talent Equation. "There's a significant supply and demand imbalance in the marketplace, and it's becoming nearly a million-dollar problem for companies."

Sixty-eight percent of employers whose companies are expanding the number of full-time positions available have open positions because they are unable to find suitable candidates. Broken down by company size, that figure only drops below 70 percent for for companies with one to 50 employees, at 49 percent, while hitting 74 percent for companies with 51 to 250 employees.

More than half of employers noted negative affects of extended job vacancies; 45 percent cited productivity loss, 40 percent higher employee turnover and 39 percent lower morale. Workers also feel the constraints of the skill gap, with 20 percent saying their skills are not up to date. While 57 percent of workers want to learn a new skillset, half of them responded that they cannot afford the associated costs.

CareerBuilder’s data comes from an online survey conducted by Harris Poll from Nov. 16 to Dec. 6, 2016, which included 2,391 employers and 3,411 workers, and from Feb. 16 to March 9, 2017, which included 2,380 employers and 3,215 workers.