With the latest jobs report from Workforce West Virginia showing the state added only 100 jobs in April, West Virginia’s job growth is lagging behind the country’s in 2025 and over the past 12 months.
For 2025, West Virginia has experienced two months of nonfarm employment growth, and two months of losses, which have essentially evened each other out, with the state netting -100 jobs for the first four months of 2025, for a decline of 0.01 percent. In contrast, the national economy has seen total nonfarm employment growth of 575,000, or an increase of 0.36 percent. The expiration of federal K-12 education funding and DOGE cuts have driven a significant number of job losses in the government sector, while the private sector has failed to see promised growth stemming from the state’s deep personal income tax cuts, leading West Virginia to a weaker economy than the rest of the country.
West Virginia’s jobs market has also trailed the nation over the past 12 months. From April 2024 to April 2025, total nonfarm employment in West Virginia fell by 700 jobs, a decline of 0.1 percent. Meanwhile, total nonfarm employment nationally has increased by 1.88 million jobs, an increase of 1.2 percent.
Not all sectors of West Virginia’s economy are slowing, however. Over the past 12 months, the health care and social assistance sector has added 3,800 jobs, while the construction sector has added 1,900 jobs. Health care has been a bright spot in the state’s economy for a number of years. While total nonfarm employment growth has been flat since 2014, health care and social assistance jobs have steadily grown. With that said, proposed changes to Medicaid being considered in Congress could undermine health care industry growth in the state, leading to deep coverage losses that forfeit federal health care dollars and increase uncompensated care. The changes, if enacted, could result in the loss of 2,100 to 3,000 jobs annually in West Virginia.
In contrast to health care, the leisure and hospitality, government, wholesale trade, and professional and business services sectors all saw job losses of over 1,000 in the past twelve months. The government losses were mainly felt at the local level, where 1,300 jobs have been lost since April 2024. One probable cause of the loss of local jobs is the end of ESSER funding for public schools. Federal government jobs have declined by 300, with most of those losses occurring since January, as DOGE cuts began to impact the state.
And while the state’s unemployment rate has fallen from 4.0 percent to 3.8 percent over the past year, it has fallen more due to workers leaving the labor force than due to finding employment. While the number of unemployed workers has fallen from 31,900 to 29,400, a decline of 2,500, the number of employed workers has fallen by 6,200. Instead of finding work, unemployed workers are leaving the labor force, lowering the unemployment rate, but also lowering the state’s labor force participation rate. Over the past twelve months, the size of the state’s labor force has shrunk by 8,700 workers, and the labor force participation rate has fallen from 55.0 percent to 54.3 percent.
As we continue on into the year, the flat job growth, weakening labor force, and proposed federal program changes like cuts to Medicaid should raise concern for policymakers. Income tax cuts have led to steep declines in state revenue over the past two years, and the state will need strong economic growth to offset those tax cuts in order to meet a number of pressing budgetary needs. And while those tax cuts were promised to put the state on a path to economic growth, that growth hasn’t materialized after two years of tax cuts.
