2 . Corporate Recruitment and International

Corporate Recruitment & International

Corporate Recruitment accelerates business growth and job creation through sustainable, cluster-focused domestic and international corporate expansion and relocation . Financial incentives are available for business relocation and expansion for select companies that create new, high-paying jobs to help improve the standard of living, increase the tax base, attract and retain top-level management, and diversify the state economy . The GOED Board provides recommendations to the executive director, who has the authority to finalize incentive amount and duration based on statutory direction and evaluation criteria . These criteria include financial strength of the company, number and salary of jobs created, amount of new state tax revenue, long-term capital investment, competition with other locations and whether the company is headquartered in Utah or in a targeted strategic industry cluster . Incentives are:

1) Post-performance, where companies met contract performance benchmarks of job creation and new state taxes, 2) Single Taxpayer, with tax credit amounts based on new state taxes generated, and 3) Competitive, in that companies must evaluate Utah against other locations .

Achievements

Fiscal Year 2017 proved an active one with 19 EDTIF incentives approved by the GOED Board . The companies involved were a mix of 11 headquartered outside the state and eight existing Utah companies on high-growth trajectories . The majority of the projects directly support the expansion of strategic industry clusters, in particular five in software/information technology and four in the emerging sub-sector of financial technology, or “fintech.” Manufacturing/distribution projects continued strong with nine projects represented . Several projects garnered national attention, including global brands representing significant growth opportunities . Amazon and UPS top this list . GOED continued to work in close collaboration with the Economic Development Corporation of Utah (EDCUtah) to identify and recruit out-of-state companies. Of note, the Varo Money project was the first EDTIF generated by EDCUtah’s Global Strategy & Outreach initiative . The initiative shows promise for more projects in FY 2018 . GOED’s International Trade and Diplomacy program leads out on international efforts including trade mission coordination, business mentoring, foreign direct investment attraction, and diplomatic meetings and tours . It is vital that GOED’s corporate recruitment strategy also taps global markets .

Challenges

On the operational side, in FY 2017, GOED incentives devoted increased resources to analyzing the pool of active EDTIF projects . This effort has brought more rigor to confirming actual jobs created and new state revenues generated . In parallel, GOED’s compliance team is working to streamline the reporting process for new and existing EDTIF clients .

Full Time Employees: 10

Contact

Ben Hart

Deputy Director 801-538-8799 bhart@utah.gov