Go Utah: New job-creation records

Rebounding from a fiscal year dominated by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Governor’s Office of Economic Opportunity (Go Utah) awarded incentives in fiscal 2022 to economic development projects expected to generate or retain 20,478 jobs over the next few years.

That figure compares with 8,831 jobs in the 2020-21 July-through-June fiscal year. The previous high was 13,364 in fiscal 2020.{mprestriction ids="1,3"}

“Well over what we’ve done in the past,” is how Daniel Royal, Go Utah’s director of corporate growth and business development, characterized the job numbers for the Go Utah board at its June meeting.

Related statistics likewise were records. Total project capital expenditure for 2021-22 is estimated at over $1.97 billion, up from $464.3 million the prior fiscal year and comparing with over $1.1 billion in 2020. New total wages are projected at $12.73 billion, up from $5.5 billion the prior year. Total new state tax revenue is projected to reach $942.4 million, up from $341.3 million a year earlier.

Gov. Spencer Cox has put an emphasis on economic development in rural Utah, and the 2021-22 numbers bear that out. Go Utah officials said the job-creation and capital expenditure figures for rural Utah during the year are higher than the previous five fiscal years combined.

Job creation figures for rural Utah projects were “well beyond what we’ve done in previous years,” Royal said. The 2021-22 fiscal year projects are expected to create or retain 8,972 jobs in rural Utah, up from 2,747 the prior year. Capital expenditure on rural projects is expected to be nearly $1.27 billion, up from $201.2 million. Total wages are expected to be $5.28 billion, up from $1.97 billion the prior year. New state tax revenue from rural projects is expected to hit $572.4 million, up from nearly $116.7 million in 2020-21.

The tax revenue amounts “have gone well beyond what we’ve done in the past, both in total and in the rural numbers,” Royal said.

Incentives are geared toward companies creating high-paying jobs. The fiscal year’s average project wage is 68 percent higher than the average county wage for urban projects and 44 percent higher than the average county wage for rural projects.

“I just don’t want it to get lost in the mix just how big this year was,” Ben Hart, Go Utah’s deputy director, told the board. He attributed the success to Go Utah staff and the Go Utah partnerships with the Economic Development Corporation of Utah and local governments.

“This really was a tremendous year,” he said. “If you look at that year-over-year, you can see how strong this year was. So, fiscal year-wise, we hope we’re in for another strong year next year.”

The number are still rolling in for EDCUtah, which has a few days left in its fiscal year. At the June Go Utah board meeting, the agency reported that, to date, it had 35 project wins, matching its goal for the fiscal year; 18,332 new or retained jobs, more than twice the 9,000-job goal; $1.9 billion in project capital expenditure, compared with goal of $1.08 billion; and project square footage of 3.1 million, exceeding the goal of 2.5 million.

In 2020-21, EDCUtah had project wins expected to generate or retain 8,305 jobs over the life of the projects, have total capital spending of $912 million and use 4.3 million square feet of space.

“We went double what our target was for ourself, which is really excellent,” Colby Cooley, vice president of business development at EDCUtah, said of the current-year jobs number. “We’re going to revise that up this year because we think with the scale of projects that are coming in the front door, we just think that we will exceed that 9,000 number again.”

The to-date 35 project wins was only two fewer than in the 2020-21 fiscal year.

“I think there’s nothing standing our way in terms of trying to do that again next year,” Cooley said. “I don’t think I’ll rachet that number up significantly because we are trying to be a little bit more discerning, actually, in the number of projects that we bring in and vet through our system before we make them a project. So I don’t expect significantly different numbers or larger scale, but again to hit that number is excellent and it probably sets a pretty good benchmark for where we’ll be at next year as well.”

EDCUtah expects new project starts to be up from the prior fiscal year. Before the pandemic, the agency would average nine to 11 new projects a month, but that has jumped to 13 now, and 17 in April of this year, “even with us trying to be really, really selective,” Cooley said. “So there’s certainly no shortage of interest … coming into our pipeline.”

One noticeable shift has been the project mix. Among about 145 active projects, 76 are in manufacturing. Before the pandemic, about 60 percent of active projects involved offices, he said.

Go Utah and EDCUtah numbers never match exactly because not all of EDCUtah projects go through the state incentive process.{/mprestriction}