Five industry sectors in Utah now show declining numbers of jobs, according to the state’s most recent monthly employment report, which shows the long-running trend of job growth has now reversed itself.

Employment fell by 0.2 percent, Mark Knold of the state’s department of workforce services reports, while unemployment for Utah sits at 3.5 percent, still well below the national average of 6.5 percent.

Perhaps hardest hit is Washington County and the county’s seat of St. George. One of the hardest hit areas in Utah because of the dramatic housing industry slowdown, Washington County residents have seen the number of jobs decline by 3.8 percent, the result of market corrections that are pushing key economic indicators back into balance, particularly for an area where the economy recently sprung forward by huge margins. “For example, between 2004 and 2006, the Washington County economy grew by 20 percent. It only took two years to grow the economy by one-fifth,” Knold explains. “Usually such excessive growth suggests stealing prosperity from the future, and that seems to be Washington County’s case.”

As expected, construction has borne the brunt of job cutbacks with the state shedding 13,400 jobs in that sector alone over the last year. This far outdistances all other declining industries, Knold says, adding the manufacturing sector is down 1,800 jobs, financial activities down 1,200, information down 600, and other services down 300.

Knold says 2009 will show a worsening trend, perhaps the sharpest employment downturn in 55 years. The state could shed 1.5 percent of total jobs — some 19,000. Education and healthcare as well as the governmental sector will hold up well. Transportation sector jobs might hold up as well given the recent steep decline in fuel prices. Undoubtedly, retail and trade will take a hit, even in Utah which has been fairly resilient against the national trend.

In other economic news today:

Prices paid to U.S. producers plunged in October by the most on record as the faltering global economy caused demand for commodities to dry up. The 2.8 percent drop was larger than forecast and followed a 0.4 percent decline in September.

Home prices fell in four out of every five U.S. cities in the third quarter, a record spurred by distressed foreclosure sales across the country. The median price of a U.S. home fell 9 percent from a year earlier and sales of properties with mortgages in default accounted for at least a third of all transactions, the Chicago- based National Association of Realtors said today. Prices fell in 120 U.S. metropolitan areas, rose in 28 and were unchanged in four, the biggest share of declines in data going back to 1979.