A HUGE drive is being launched to get Bolton back to work after this year's devastating job losses.

Council chiefs are horrified that almost 1,000 jobs have been lost since January 1. This compares with 431 in the whole of 1998.

Now town hall bosses are joining together with the Bolton and Bury Chamber and Employment Services to make sure those made unemployed are given as much help as possible to find work.

The action comes three weeks after the Bolton Evening News launched its successful Millennium Jobs Challenge.

Bolton's planning and environment committee chairman Cllr Jack Foster said: "The BEN is very much part of the team who are doing everything we can to create jobs.

"We need to replace as many of these jobs which have been lost as quickly as possible."

Staff from Bolton Council's economic and physical development unit have already offered help to employees who have been made redundant.

They can give advice about training and they are setting out to attract new firms to Bolton.

A report on the work being done will be presented to councillors on Bolton's newly-formed economic development sub-committee tomorrow.

Cllr Foster, who is also chairman of this committee, said: "The job losses in the past few weeks have been terrible.

"The Middlebrook development and The Valley have brought new jobs over the past couple of years.

"They are service jobs rather than manufacturing but they are still a wage in someone's pocket.

"I dread to think where we would be now if they had not been built."

He also revealed that Bolton Council's Environment Department also hoped to take on four 16-year-olds this year and train them in a variety of technical and engineering skills.

Meanwhile, as already reported, council chiefs are writing to Environment Minister Richard Caborn to call for Bolton to keep its assisted area status.

This has allowed the town to have extra grants because of its deprived status.

But now council chiefs are worried that Bolton could become a victim of its own recent success and lose out.

Cllr Foster said: "The recent redundancies show that we do still have problems and we need the assisted area status."

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