A critical issue today for organizations is the lack of skills among the workforces. One of the main concerns for industries and organizations in the United States is how they plan to keep up with these shortcomings and be able to compete with fierce competition in a global market. The only rational and palpable answer to this concern is for the educational system and leading industries and organizations to start investing in preparing more students with not only essential academic and vocational skills but also in soft skills such as the 21st century 4Cs skills to meet the challenges of emerging businesses and technologies. The purpose of this applied qualitative research is to examine, explore, and describe perceptions of private-sector employers operating from Lackawanna County, NE PA concerning the 21st Century 4Cs ("Critical Thinking, Communication, Creativity and Collaboration") skills gap, which impacts their productivity. This research starts by introducing the overall issue of the soft skills gap, including the 4Cs skills in the United States and as a global issue for organizations and businesses by shedding light on the complexity of soft skills including 4Cs and the uses of them by organizations. This research conducted a data-gathering process via interviewing participants, conducting coding, and recognizing emerged themes and subthemes, and finally arriving at several main themes that represent final findings related to the three main research questions. As a result of this research, there will be an introduction to emotional intelligence clusters and related competencies that connect to the main emerged themes. In conclusion, this research indicates its suggestions and recommendations regarding the implications of those emerged themes and the emotional intelligence competency-based training for organizations, their current workforce, educators, trainers, and developmental programs. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com.bibliotheek.ehb.be/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]