A new survey by Michael Hicks, director of Ball State University's Bureau of Business Research, ranked Utah the second best state in the country for manufacturing. Two other recent surveys, conducted by Forbes.com and CNBC, placed Utah in the top five states for its business climate.

"When it comes to a state having a favorable climate for manufacturing, there are a couple of things that really seem to matter - a favorable tax structure and educational opportunities that include the availability of community and technical colleges," Hicks said.

In the Ball State survey, Utah was second behind Missouri but above Florida, Alabama, South Dakota and Indiana. The top six states all received "A" rankings in the survey for their performances in 20 categories that included property taxes, sales taxes, unemployment insurance, corporate taxes, crime and the percentage of population who are college graduates.

Thomas Bingham, president of the Utah Manufacturers Association, said the state has a lot going for it, especially when it comes to attracting new businesses.

"One thing that really has helped is that the state now comes to the table offering [competitive] economic incentives to attract new business," he said.

Currently there are about 6,000 manufacturers operating in the state and employing approximately 120,000 workers.

Although the state has seen good growth in its manufacturing for roughly the past five years, Utah now appears to be approaching a period of low or no growth in the number of jobs available in the sector, said Mark Knold, chief labor market economist for the Utah Department of Workforce Services.

Knold pointed out the growth in manufacturing jobs in June was a scant 0.7 percent compared with 1.2 percent the month earlier. "Once our economy gets back to a stronger footing we should see the number of manufacturing sector jobs growing again."

Earlier this week, Forbes.com for the second year in a row ranked Utah as the second-best state for business, behind only Virginia, which has held the top ranking for the past three years. Utah finished ahead of Washington, North Carolina and Georgia.

Three weeks ago, Utah finished third in CNBC's list of "America's Top States for Business." It finished behind Texas and Virginia.

steve@sltrib.com

Utah business climate rankings

Manufacturing

No. 2 - Ball State study

No. 2 - Forbes.com

No. 3 - CNBC