MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Economic experts at West Virginia University’s Chambers College of Business and Economics have advised state leaders that more needs to be done to address long-term goals for the Mountain State.
WVU Bureau of Business and Economics Research Director John Deskins reported to state leaders during the first week of the 2026 legislative session that despite several efforts on a legislative level to address economic development, more work is needed to address workforce and quality of life woes that have been ongoing for several years. This includes efforts to address the workforce while also working to build on the thousands of jobs that have been created in the state over several years so that proposals such as Governor Patrick Morrisey’s ten percent reduction in the sales tax can be a reality.
“I will say this, we fully recovered from the COVID recession in the fall of 2023, but over the last two years, we haven’t grown hardly at all,” said Deskins on the need for improvement. “The state has added only about 1,000 or 2,000 jobs, that only amounts to about 0.3 % job growth over the last two years.”
According to Deskins, the needs for the Mountain State to continue building on the economic development efforts remain multi-faceted, with workforce participation continuing to be a major catalyst. Despite the state reflecting moves away from the economic recession caused by COVID-19 from as far back as 2023, the 54 percent workforce participation rate that has been confirmed as recent as 2025 remains the lowest in the country and is considered a major reason why the trend hasn’t continued to move in the right direction. With issues related to drug addiction, along with the still aging average population of the state, Deskins feels the state needs to tackle a lot of these issues at once to achieve the economic goals of state leaders.
“We have to kind of do two things at once, which is difficult,” said Deskins on WAJR’s Talk of the Town. “We have to improve the quality of our workforce to make West Virginia more attractive to potential businesses, but at the same time we have to continue to do more to sell West Virginia as a good place to locate your business.”
Along with the development of a workforce in West Virginia, Deskins also added that factors related to quality of life also have to be accounted for in order to bring investment into the state. This includes the need for investments in education and public health as well as the support of local amenities that have been shown to bring large-scale investments into the Mountain State, with Deskins pointing out efforts in Monongalia County to support development, which has led to investments in areas such as the Morgantown Industrial Park and the WestRidge Business District. With most of the state still behind in regard to education investment as efforts to increase medical care access remain ongoing, Deskins hopes the state continues to support whatever proposals are there to bring more economic drivers to the state.
“We have to make West Virginia the place that you want to be,” said Deskins. “I think investing in outdoor amenities, investing in education, investing in various public amenities and infrastructure, etc., I think all that is also part of the economic development picture.”
Despite the long road ahead for the Mountain State, Deskins did offer state leaders several positive trends that he feels can be used as building blocks towards the results that are desired statewide. This includes a strong natural gas presence in the state, which can be used to support developments such as data centers, which in turn can lead to investments from technology-based companies that have net values of billions of dollars. With legislators working in full swing over the next 50-plus days as part of the 2026 legislative session, Deskins hopes that the efforts to make West Virginia an ideal place to do business can continue.
“Economic development is a very complicated matter, and you have to have numerous things that fall into place to really make West Virginia competitive in the modern economy,” said Deskins.