evidence: West Virginia Economic Outlook 2022-2026 West Virginia Economic Outlook 2022-2026 is published by the Bureau of Business & Economic Research, John Chambers College of Business & Economics, West Virginia University, Josh Hall, PhD, Milan Puskar Dean [...] We anticipate employment levels in West Virginia will reach pre-pandemic levels by mid-2022 and continue to climb into 2023 but the state is expected to see payrolls fall appreciably short of the peak levels recorded in 2018 and 2019. By early-2024, the forecast calls for the state’s rebound to lose momentum as the state’s long-term structural economic issues and underlying demographic problems return to the forefront. These factors ultimately will limit the state’s growth potential and lead to a decline in payrolls during the final two years of the outlook period.