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The global digital storage company EMC Corp. is expanding its Utah operations with 250 new jobs, in addition to the 500 the company already was planning to add, state officials announced Friday.
EMC Corp., based in Hopkinton, Mass., opened a 25,000-square-foot technical and customer-services center in Draper in December, and EMC officials said they anticipated having the 500 jobs filled by the end of 2015.
On Friday, the company and state economic development officials said they now expect EMC to add an additional 250 jobs by 2021 that are expected to pay more than 125 percent of Salt Lake County's average annual wage of $43,468.
To entice the company to expand, the board of the Governor's Office of Economic Development (GOED) voted Friday to expand a previously announced $3.5 million tax incentive to $5.17 million. EMC pledged an additional capital expenditure of at least $4 million.
The board also extended tax incentives to a maker of composite aerospace parts to build a new manufacturing facility and hire 93 people.
GOED Executive Director Spencer Eccles called the new EMC job announcement "welcoming news to a community already buzzing with the economic activity generated by the company's recent expansion into Utah."
EMC was ranked 152nd on the Fortune 500 list of largest U.S. companies for 2011. It provides computer storage hardware and software for its clients, focusing on cloud computing that involves large banks of servers operating together. The company has 53,000 employees worldwide and eight other customer-support centers.
The Draper facility supports the company's U.S. customers, and EMC plans to add Spanish and Portuguese speakers to also serve Central and South America.
The GOED board also voted to extend $175,000 in tax incentives to Rock West Composites, a San Diego-based company that plans to open a parts manufacturing facility for the aerospace industry.
Michael Sullivan, GOED spokesman, said the company already owns a building in the Salt Lake area where it plans to construct the facility.
"It's a brand new facility coming to Utah," he said, adding Utah competed against other states for it.
Rock West CEO Jim Gormican said in a statement that the company's new Precision Assembly division offers "many unique advantages to our current and prospective customers. The idea of offering a lower-cost alternative for assembly operations to our customers, without the risk and high investment cost of dealing with off-shore companies, should resonate well."
The state's $175,000 incentive agreement gives the company five years to create 93 jobs paying a minimum of 125 percent of Salt Lake County's average wage. State officials estimated the project will generate $15.6 million in wages and $875,711 in new state tax revenue over the next five years.