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SALT LAKE CITY -- Governor Gary Herbert announced Monday, the State would be adding new jobs by the end of 2015.
EMC Corporation, a global information technology leader, will open a new customer support center in Utah, providing the State with 500 new jobs.
EMC received a tax credit from the state to bring their customer support center to Utah. In return, EMC has agreed to invest $7 million into the facility, which will give the State a total of $14 million at the end of the 10-year tax credit agreement.
I'm a firm believer that if we create a fertile field -- a business friendly environment -- the entrepreneur will say, ‘Utah, that is the place to do business,'
–Gary Herbert
The announcement was made Monday morning by Governor Herbert and the Utah Governor's Office of Economic Development at the IM Flash facility in Lehi.
Herbert said the expansion of EMC in Utah is just another example of Utah's ability to be among the leading IT locations in the world.
"I'm a firm believer that if we create a fertile field -- a business friendly environment -- the entrepreneur will say, ‘Utah, that is the place to do business,' " said Herbert.
Governor Herbert said EMC's presence continues to strengthen Utah's economic outlook. In May, Utha's unemployment rate was 7.3 percent, down a half percent from this time last year.
Spencer Eccles, Executive Director of the Governor's Office of Economic Development, said the expansion of a leading IT company will enhance Utah's ability to bring more high paying technical jobs to the state further down the road.
"When we get involved at that level, it doesn't jump impact positively the company coming, it impacts the companies that will spur up around it," added Eccles.
EMC, which employs more than 48,500 people worldwide and ranks 152 among the Fortune 500 companies, assists information technology departments store, manage, protect and analyze information.
Howard Elias, president and chief operating officer for EMC Information Infrastructure and Cloud Services, said the new center will serve the company's growing customer support operations and complement its other centers around the world.
"We are pleased to locate our newest customer support center in Utah with its growing skilled workforce, educational institutions and quality of life characteristics," he said in a statement.
Along with the 500 jobs the expansion will create, on Monday, IM Flash announced they will be adding another 200 jobs by next year.
The company expects to pay about $1.4 billion in new state wages over the next decade as well as investing $1.5 billion in capital as it implements its growth strategy.
"Our plans are to continue our investments as we move forward and also expand — not only in Utah, but around the globe," said Keyvan Esfarjani, co-executive officer of IM Flash. Most of the new jobs will be engineering and technical support positions, he added.
IM Flash — a joint venture between Intel Corp. and Micron Technology — is a world leader in flash memory technology.
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Story written by Shara Park with contributions from Jasen Lee.
