In brief: Spokane bucks state trend, registers rise in retail sales

Of Washington’s five major cities, only Spokane registered an increase – a very small one – in retail sales during the third quarter of 2008.

Taxable retail sales, at $1.03 billion, inched up 0.15 percent from the 2007 July-September period, according to the Washington Department of Revenue.

Retail trade results, which exclude construction, services and other non-retail businesses, also improved by 1.12 percent to $488.1 million.

Retail sales decreased about 3 percent in Seattle, 12 percent in Bellevue, 10 percent in Tacoma, and 11 percent in Everett.

Spokane County did better than the four other most populous counties, but closed the quarter off 4.19 percent in taxable retail and 5.33 percent in retail trade compared with the 2007 quarter.

For all of Washington, taxable retail sales fell to $29.8 billion, off 4.2 percent from 2007, and retail trade was off 6.2 percent to $12.4 billion.

SPOKANE

Web developer acquires firm

Greg Green, who launched a Web content company called Tahoe in 2008, said he’s also acquired Web development company Spokane Web Communications.

Spokane Web develops and hosts Internet sites. It’s been in business for seven years, with an address in Liberty Lake.

Green said Tahoe, which develops dynamic content for sites, makes an ideal companion operation for Spokane Web.

Spokane Web has five company employees, said Green. Until recently, he also operated Vivo Media. He sold that company to another Spokane-area magazine publisher.

TRENTON, N.J.

Pfizer plans to lay off scientists

Pfizer Inc., the world’s biggest drug company, is laying off up to 800 scientists this year in its latest effort to refocus disappointing research efforts and cut its massive overhead ahead of an anticipated crash in revenue.

New York-based Pfizer plans to reduce its global research staff – currently about 10,000 people – by 5 percent to 8 percent this year, company spokeswoman Kristen Neese said Tuesday.

The move comes after the company announced in September that it was narrowing its research focus to six disease areas – Alzheimer’s, cancer, schizophrenia, pain, inflammation and diabetes – and abandoning new research in other areas.

From staff and wire reports