DESPITE the tough times in manufacturing that have cost more than 1,000 jobs in East Lancashire in the past 18 months, yet again we see encouraging resilience in this self-same sector proving that our region's economy can still ride the rough patches.

For while high-profile job cutbacks by the hundred have gripped the headlines -- as with the axe falling at Rolls-Royce in Barnoldswick and at automotive industry suppliers Michelin and Viktor Achter in Burnley -- the balance is being adjusted and new jobs created to replace the lost ones.

Many, of course, have been in the service and commercial sectors -- as with the hundreds being provided by Blackburn with Darwen Council's support services partner, Capita, and the new Pensions Agency's call centre at Simonstone.

But while this increased diversification of East Lancashire's labour market is a welcome development that creates a white-collar skills core which provides the region with a buffer against hard times in the manufacturing sector, there has also been reassuring drive and robustness among manufacturing firms that shows that the trend is far from all downward.

Today, we see the Darwen company Octaveward, which makes mouldings, canopies and composite doors, creating an extra 30 jobs and taking its payroll to more than 100 after experiencing an unprecedented increase in sales in recent months -- stemming from its strategy of swift response to customers' demands.

And, encouragingly, it is skilled and semi-skilled jobs that are being created in this expansion -- a development that helps to improve spending power in the region's economy, but also sustains its vital skills base.

Increasingly, East Lancashire's manufacturers-- particularly the new generation of smaller firms -- are showing their ability to survive and prosper through flexibility and finding niche markets. They are still a powerful fuel in our region's economy and their positive contribution is often overlooked when the axe falls elsewhere in the sector.