IT doesn't seem to add up. Big job losses are announced almost daily.

Yet unemployment continues to fall to its lowest level for a quarter of a century. What's the reason?

Part of the answer is that when big firms cut jobs, it makes news.

But a hundred small firms, each taking on a handful of new workers, never grabs the headlines.

The truth is that, over recent years, small firms have been more than making up for the job losses in big companies.

Indeed, small firms now account for a staggering 98.9 per cent of all businesses and, crucially, provide 50 per cent of all jobs in Britain. In the right business climate, that proportion is set to rise further.

After pressure from Britain, the EU has come up with a £300 million programme to assist SMEs. That is something dear to my heart because I am Labour's European spokesperson on trade and industry.

Locally, small firms are likely to benefit from the new economic development zone recently established in East Lancashire.

The EU has allocated £7 million to this £41.7 million scheme to develop business parks and the Lantern Park knowledge zone.

Overall, the EDZ is expected to create 3,300 new jobs, mainly in SMEs, and safeguard almost 1,000 existing ones.

Projects like these are now spring up all over the country and are bound to have a positive impact on Britain's unemployment figures in the months and years ahead.

GARY TITLEY, Labour MEP for the North West.