For most Americans, Labor Day is a welcome holiday off work. Yet for others, it is just another day without work, following months without a steady source of income. 
 
 Almost 10 percent of Americans are facing unemployment, unable to support themselves and their families. 
 
 In response to the ongoing unemployment crisis, the U.S. Department of Labor is commemorating Labor Day 2010 by launching a new website to help out-of-work Americans find new opportunities. 
 
 Entitled My Skills My Future, the website provides tools for potential workers to search for jobs by entering in their previous work experience. An instructional video featured on the My Skills My Future homepage explains how to use the database to search for employment opportunities and local job training seminars. 
 
 Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis also released a video to give a "state of the American worker report." 
 
 WATCH: 
 
 For more, visit our new Third World America section. ||||| The Obama administration will propose an $8 billion, three-year plan for shoring up career programs at community colleges to help train 2 million people for the workforce. 
 
 The plan, to be administered by the Education and Labor departments, designates funds in the 2013 budget to establish training courses for skilled careers, develop partnerships between the schools and employers, and help state and local governments attract businesses, according to an Education Department statement. 
 
 Shrinking state budgets and increasing numbers of unemployed people in the wake of the recession that began in 2007 have strained community colleges. The funding would help colleges accommodate more students in need of job skills, said David Baime of the American Association of Community Colleges in Washington. 
 
 “It looks pretty darned good at this point,” said Baime, the association’s vice president for government relations, in a telephone interview. “At this scale, these resources could have a real benefit in helping colleges meet the demands of the workforce and the expectations that people have of them.” 
 
 The association represents about 95 percent of the 1,200 community colleges in the U.S., Baime said. About 8 million students take courses for credit at community colleges each term, and an additional 5 million take non-credit courses, according to the association. 
 
 Technical Skills 
 
 Many Americans looking for work lack the experience to fill positions that require technical skills, such as in health care, advanced manufacturing, energy, and information technology, the Education Department said. Employers in the science, technical, and engineering fields frequently report that they need more trained workers, said Thomas Bailey, director of the Community College Research Center in New York. 
 
 “This is an area where investment of resources could be useful,” Bailey said. 
 
 The program, called the Community College to Career Fund, will pay to expand training and certification programs at community colleges for growing employment fields. It will also support internship programs for low-income community college students, according to the statement. 
 
 States will be allowed to apply for funds to help businesses increase workers’ skills. The plan also calls for online courses in entrepreneurship for small-business owners to be offered through community colleges. 
 
 Lack of Funds 
 
 Over the next three years, an additional $1.5 billion will go to extending programs that help train and find employment for workers who have been hurt by international trade agreements, according to the statement. 
 
 Community colleges have been hurt by a lack of funds for buildings and equipment needed to teach specialized courses for highly skilled jobs, said Karen Stout, president of Montgomery County Community College, which has two campuses in the county just west of Philadelphia. The college’s budget was cut 10 percent last year, and it hasn’t had new funds for building in four years, she said. 
 
 While she would like to expand her college’s programs for health-care workers and nuclear engineering technicians, they require equipment and specialized instructors she can’t currently afford, Stout said. 
 
 “It sounds like this program matches up exactly with those needs,” said Stout, who hadn’t seen all the details of President Barack Obama’s plan. 
 
 Obama in Virginia 
 
 Obama will unveil the program later today at Northern Virginia Community College, in Annandale, Virginia, the Education Department said. Later this month, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, Education Secretary Arne Duncan, and Vice President Joe Biden’s wife Jill Biden will travel across the country to recognize community colleges and businesses that are working together to train and employ workers. 
 
 Obama in 2009 proposed a $12-billion, 10-year-plan to support community colleges that Congress cut to $2 billion. State budget cuts have fallen hard in California, where in the 2009-2010 academic year, 133,000 first-time students couldn’t get into any course as community colleges cut offerings, according to a statement from Jack Scott, California Community Colleges Chancellor, in a statement Feb. 1. 
 
 “Those trends of terrible fiscal situations and surging enrollments are still there at community colleges,” said Bailey at the Community College Research Center. 
 
 To contact the reporter on this story: John Lauerman in Boston at jlauerman@bloomberg.net 
 
 To contact the editor responsible for this story: Lisa Wolfson at lwolfson@bloomberg.net
– For those who wish they were working this holiday weekend, the Labor Department has a new website aimed at helping out-of-work Americans land a job. Called My Skills, My Future, the site allows job-seekers to punch in their skills, search for jobs, and obtain training, reports Huffington Post.