Jobs adding up, thanks to incentives

Thursday's lone corporate financial incentive awarded by the Governor's Office of Economic Development Board could mean 50 new full-time jobs in Weber County.

But that amount is relatively small when compared with projects approved earlier in the fiscal year and perhaps what is to come during the next few months.

The board on Thursday OK'd a tax-rebate incentive of up to $153,638 for the Great Salt Lake Mineral Corp., based in Ogden. The rebate would be paid out over 10 years and would help the company upgrade its existing operations, which would lead to the 50 new jobs.

The company operates 43,000 acres of solar evaporation ponds in Weber and Box Elder counties and produces its three core products — sulfate of potash, salt and magnesium chloride minerals — at a Weber County production facility. GSL has 330 full-time employees with an annual payroll of $16 million, and the company pays $5 million a year to the state in royalty payments.

The new jobs would pay 25 percent above the Weber County average wage. The upgrade would result in more than $40 million in investment by the company for new machinery and equipment, board documents show.

Thursday's meeting was the latest in a busy fiscal year for the board. Not counting Thursday, the board has approved incentives designed to create or retain 3,576 jobs. GOED's goal for the year is 4,400 jobs.

"The jobs that we are creating, these 3,500 jobs, (are) within the digital media area, within the IT area, within our (economic) cluster areas, including manufacturing," said Derek Miller, director of business recruitment and incentives for GOED. "One of the reasons it's so significant is that these are the jobs not only within the clusters — and we want to focus on them and we need those that are high-paying jobs — but they're also the jobs that typically tend to stay around.

"Nothing is really recession-proof, but there are some areas that are more recession-proof than others. And so we are heartened by the fact that the jobs that we're creating in the state are ones that are stable, significant, high-paying jobs."

Jeff Edwards, president and chief executive officer of the Economic Development Corp. of Utah, said his agency has been involved with projects creating 3,203 jobs and retaining 1,058 jobs during the current fiscal year.

EDCU is expecting an announcement soon about a company creating more than 600 jobs, and an 1,100-job project involving a household products manufacturing operation is expected to apply for a state financial incentive soon, he said.