President Donald Trump said his administration's new workers' council will help fill 3.7 million jobs in the U.S.
"We have tremendous numbers of people who really are phenomenal in every way but they're not trained and they're not qualified," Trump said during an exclusive interview with CNBC's Joe Kernen that aired Friday on "Squawk Box."
"We need people who are skilled," he said. "We need people who are trained. It's much different than it was 30 years ago and 40 years ago."
Trump signed an executive order Thursday creating the National Council for the American Worker, intended to beef up training and education for American workers.
Walmart, Home Depot, General Motors, and Microsoft are among the companies and associations Thursday that signed a pledge, committing to create job opportunities over the next five years. Walmart alone said it would commit to training 1 million people.
Trump campaigned on promises to restore American jobs. As president, he has threatened to punish companies who move jobs overseas and enacted steep tariffs on steel and aluminum imports that he said are protecting American companies and their workers.
Since then, those steel and aluminum tariffs have been enacted on numerous nations, including allies Canada, Mexico, and the European Union.
Other companies have announced a series of investments meant to spur jobs in the U.S. Apple, which Trump has publicly criticized, said earlier this year it would make a $350 billion "contribution" to the U.S. economy and promised to create 20,000 new jobs, as well as open a new campus.
The workers' council announced Thursday is spearheaded by senior White House advisor and elder daughter to Trump, Ivanka Trump.
Ivanka Trump, during an interview with CNBC on Thursday, stressed the need for workers in the middle and later stages of their careers to have access to training that will help them transition to new jobs.
"We also have to be thinking about the mid- to late-career worker, who needs to be re-trained and re-skilled," she said. "As a country, by and large, all investment in education stops at the age of 25, and that doesn't work in such a fast-changing, increasingly digital economy."