The U.S. economy is resilient, but the inescapable truth is that we have a persistent jobs challenge that demands an aggressive response. That's why earlier this year President Obama asked 26 private-sector leaders to develop ideas that will accelerate job growth and improve America's competitiveness.

The President's Jobs and Competitiveness Council is made up of industry leaders, people running large and small companies, and people standing up for the rights of workers. We've been at work for the past 90 days to develop recommendations for a series of immediate, actionable steps to accelerate job creation. Today we are presenting an initial "progress report" to the president that includes a series of steps that can help spur hiring in the short term in areas like construction, manufacturing, health care and tourism.

No single idea, however well-conceived, will solve our nation's employment challenge. So we're taking a comprehensive approach with eight teams focused on specific areas such as skills and training, regulatory reform, and innovation. We analyzed which actions are critical to accelerating job growth in high-potential sectors, while also addressing areas of concentrated unemployment. We believe that the following "fast-action" steps can support the creation of more than one million jobs within these industries.

• Train workers for today's open jobs. There are more than two million open jobs in the U.S., in part because employers can't find workers with the advanced manufacturing skills they need. The private sector must quickly form partnerships with community colleges, vocational schools and others to match career training with real-world hiring needs.

• Streamline permitting. Cut red tape so job-creating construction and infrastructure projects can move forward. The administration can take a few simple steps to streamline the process of obtaining permits, without undercutting the protections that our regulatory system provides.

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• Boost jobs in travel and tourism. This industry is one of America's largest employers, but the U.S. has lost significant market share. By making it easier to visit the U.S. through improved visa processes, we can win back market share in travel and tourism and create hundreds of thousands of jobs.

• Facilitate small-business loans. Help small-business owners obtain the information and support they need to access Small Business Administration funding. At Jobs Council town halls in Dayton and Minneapolis, small-business owners expressed frustration about the challenges in obtaining financing and assistance. We must move quickly to allow easier access to SBA funding. SBA Administrator Karen Mills is already tackling this challenge, and the administration should accelerate and prioritize these efforts.

• Put construction workers back to work. More than two million construction workers don't have work. Every city in America has commercial buildings that can be made more energy efficient. Both the private and public sectors can step up to create good jobs and save energy.

Our objective for this first set of recommendations was to identify areas where the private sector and the administration could accelerate job creation immediately without the need for major legislation from Congress or actions that would have a long runway.

But it's not enough.

To truly bend the curve over the longer term, we need a more strategic view. Over the next 90 days, we will turn to addressing the actions needed to make a more significant, longer-term impact. This strategic approach will emphasize a number of areas for job growth. First, we need to focus on fast-growth companies and small business. Second, we need to make America the most attractive place on Earth for high-tech services and manufacturing jobs and to accelerate foreign direct investment in the U.S. Finally, we need to address the competitiveness of America's infrastructure. The Jobs Council will deliver recommendations on these more strategic questions in September.

By year-end we also will have looked at and made recommendations on building and improving systems for national competitiveness, including R&D investment, tax policy, visa reform and high-skilled immigration, as well as applying business concepts (like the Lean Six Sigma approach) to regulatory processes. Some of these ideas, by their nature, require bipartisan legislation and therefore may take longer to move forward, but they are all critical.

America needs more growth. The United States needs to reverse trends that developed over a long period of time, and the solutions aren't easy politically, socially or economically. The economic decisions we make now will determine American job creation and competitiveness in the years to come. Government, business and labor need to work together to get this done.

Mr. Immelt is the chairman and CEO of GE and chairman of the President's Jobs and Competitiveness Council. Mr. Chenault is the chairman and CEO of American Express Co.