PRIME Minister Tony Blair has added his weight to The Northern Echo's Working for a Future Campaign to stand up for North-East communities hit by employment misery.

Speaking exclusively yesterday, he was upbeat about the prospects for the region's manufacturing industries, despite recent County Durham job losses in Spennymoor and Weardale - not far from his Sedgefield constituency.

It was in the wake of those announcements that The Northern Echo joined forces with development agencies including One NorthEast, County Durham Development Company and Durham County Council to launch a drive for economic regeneration.

Black & Decker, in Spennymoor, is shedding 950 workers, and Weardale has suffered job losses at cement company Lafarge's Eastgate plant and Weardale Steel, Wolsingham.

Mr Blair said: "I am fully behind The Northern Echo's efforts to bring jobs to the region. I am happy to give my backing to the aims of the campaign and absolutely committed to the strategy of bringing more jobs to the North-East.

"Manufacturing has a very healthy future in this region and throughout the country, but it will be under a constant process of change.

"There are changes going on in the market round the world. Similar jobs issues are arising in other parts of Europe, America and Japan.

"Industry and business are changing constantly. That's why education, skills and technology are important to us all.

"We have to make sure that we keep our economy stable with interest rates as low as possible and economic measures to find people new jobs."

"Today, as we speak, we have a special programme at Black & Decker in order to help people relocate and find new jobs."

"For small businesses, there is a lot of assistance that we are putting into the region through One NorthEast, through a whole series of grants, and through the Department of Trade and Industry. The start-up rate in Durham and the North-East is improving."

Mr Blair added: "The key thing is to make sure that we are still attracting new jobs into the region. Overall in the North-East economy, there is an increase of 7,000 jobs and unemployment is falling.

"We will carry on investing in our base infrastructure as well as skills and training to attract new business. There is extra money going in through the European Regional Development Fund and also from the employment service to help people find work."

Find out more about the 'Working For A Future' campaign here.