That likely means a move from 5 percent job growth back down toward 4 percent in 2007, Knold predicted.

Despite Utah's slight slowing, it still far-surpassed the national numbers, reported earlier this month by the U.S. Labor Department. The national jobless rate was 4.5 percent in October, while the employment growth rate was 1.3 percent, the department said.

"This will go down as one of the better years we've seen in quite a while," Knold said. "Utah ... could actually be the No. 1 state in the nation in terms of employment growth. We're right there with Montana and Nevada."

Looking ahead to the new year, Knold said he saw nothing to suggest that Utah's economy is headed for trouble.

"There's nothing that's really going to knock the economy into a negative tailspin or anything in that respect," he said. "But I do see it slowing down, and it's more just a matter of we can't sustain this level of growth unless we get huge amounts of in-migration, huge amounts of labor that comes in. And there's a limit to the amount of in-migration that will occur and can occur."

---

E-mail: jnii@desnews.com