According to numbers released today by the Audit Bureau of Circulations, The News Tribune has followed a nationwide trend of circulation losses.

A News Tribune spokeswoman has emphasized that readership remains strong, and that the online presence of The News Tribune continues to grow.

Daily paid circulation of The News Tribune fell from 119,077 to 111,778, or 6.1 percent, from a year ago. Sunday circulation totaled 125,955 against a previous 131,212, for a decline of 4 percent.

Daily readership of The News Tribune in Pierce County stands at 282,381, said Cathy Brewis, News Tribune marketing director, and Sunday readership totals 322,751.

David Brown, News Tribune vice president of circulation, said, “We have increased the quality of our subscriptions. We are distributing fewer free copies to home subscribers.”

“We are retaining more of our existing subscribers,” Brewis said.

She also said online measurements continue to grow. The number of monthly unique visitors increased 7.5 percent for the six months just ended, at 829,027, versus the prior six months, at 770,824. Page views on thenewstribune.com grew 12.7% during same period with an average of 5.4 million pages viewed per month during the most recent six months.

Much of the loss in circulation was due to the planned elimination of “intermittent subscriptions,” which are less valuable to advertisers, Brewis said.

According to Bloomberg News, daily circulation nationwide dropped 3.6 percent and Sunday print circulation fell 4.6 percent. Among Seattle newspapers, daily circulation rose 0.8 percent and fell 3.4 percent on Sunday.

I’ve found some interesting numbers in the Gross Business Income - Taxable Retail Sales report issued Friday by the Department of Revenue in Olympia.

Among a few selected sectors, with statewide totals for local, taxable retail sales by industry:

• Motor vehicles and parts were at $12,714,581,313 in 2007, up 2.31 percent from 2006.
• Furniture and home furnishings, $2,289,270,437, up 2.63 percent.
• Grocery and convenience stores, $3,047,344,024, up 4.22 percent.
• Book, periodical and music stores, $558,873,746, up 1.25 percent.
• Restaurants, food services and drinking places, $8,860,289,128, up 7.29 percent.
• The greatest increase came from e-commerce and mail order businesses, at $569,077,471, up 23.09 percent.
• The greatest decline was in “electronic markets, agents and brokers,” at $25,765,497, down 11.3 percent.

As for total sales (including those generated by construction other non-retail industries) from a few selected South Sound cities and towns:

• Algona was at $33,993,100, up 48.15 percent from 2006.
• Carbonado, $1,921,546, up 69.15 percent (and Carbonado nearly led state – placing behind only Hunts Point and Lake Stevens – with retail sales not including construction and other non-retailing industries at $752,107, up an impressive 234 percent. What’s going onin Carbonado?)
• DuPont, $110,306,852, up 25.47 percent.
• Fircrest, $31,528,769, down 0.60 percent.
• Gig Harbor, $601,465,022, up 14.24 percent.
• Lakewood, $881,471,538, up 7.36 percent.
• Puyallup, $1,769,138,865 , down 2.32 percent.
• Steilacoom, $30,750,892, up 27.17 percent.
• Sumner, $443,333,976, up 1.46 percent
• University Place, $232,362,711, up 8.57 percent.

For a look at a full range of reports from DOR, visit dor.wa.gov/Content/AboutUs/StatisticsAndReports/2007/qbrcal07/default.aspx

The Bureau of Labor Statistics on Friday released the latest data tracking the Class of 2007 – the nearly 3 million youth who graduated from high school between October 2006 and October 2007. Among the numbers, as of October:

• 67.2 percent were enrolled in colleges or universities. The college enrollment rates were 68.3 percent for young women and 66.1 percent for young men.

• Among recent high school graduates enrolled in college in October 2007, 93.2 percent were enrolled as full-time students.

• The proportion of the student population with a job or looking for work was 37.3 percent for full-time students and 72.7 percent for part-time students.

• About 64.1 percent of recent high school graduates enrolled in college were attending 4-year institutions. Of these students, 31.4 percent participated in the labor force; in contrast, 54.7 percent of students enrolled in 2-year institutions were the labor force.

• Between October 2006 and October 2007, 426,000 people between the ages of 16 and 24 dropped out of high school. Hispanics represented a disproportionately large share of dropouts at 27.9 percent.

• In October 2007, 21.1 million young people between the ages of 16 and 24, or 56.2 percent of the 16- to 24-year-old population, were either enrolled in high school (9.7 million) or in college (11.3 million).

• Among college students, the labor force participation rate for part-time students (85.3 percent) was higher than for full-time students (48.6 percent). Female college students were more likely to be in the labor force than male college students – 56.6 per-cent versus 51.0 percent.