MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Population loss in West Virginia has been reported for the last two years according to John Deskins, the director of WVU’s Bureau of Business and Economic Research. His prediction, after evaluating the numbers, is much of the same down the road.
Deskins, a recent guest on MetroNews Talkline, said the state would lose around 19,500 people (1.05 percent) between 2010 and 2030.
“Young people want to live in places where there’s a lot of new people, they can meet different people, different cultures that they can become connected with. With a shortage of in-migration, that’s probably going to make it harder for us to keep our young people in the state,” explained Deskins.
In recent years, the population loss recorded in West Virginia has been slight, but there’s concern for a continued declining trend in population.
From July 2013 to July 2014, the U.S. Census Bureau reported West Virginia lost 3,269 people (0.2 percent). The year prior, from July 2012 to July 2013, the population loss was recorded as 2,376.
For West Virginia’s business outlook to improve, Deskins said the population in the state needs to be increasing instead of decreasing.
“A business wants to move to a place where it knows there’s plenty of people that it can find that will work for that business. If the population is declining, fundamentally, that means businesses are going to have a harder time staffing themselves. We’re going to be less attractive to businesses,” said Deskins.
According to Deskins, who travels the country sharing research data, West Virginia ranks last among the states in terms of percentage loss and next to last in terms of absolute loss.
“I show a picture of West Virginia’s population since 1950 and the country’s population since 1950. It looks really bizarre because the country has doubled. We’ve fallen from 2 million in 1950 to about 1.85 million. It’s very unusual that that’s happening,” said Deskins.
According to studies by the WVU Bureau of Business and Economic Research, over the last two years the population loss has been due to natural declines as well net out-migration.
Addressing business and population concerns will not take a single state-wide approach said Deskins.
“The state lines are drawn somewhat arbitrarily. What’s happening in one part of the state is completely different from what’s happening in other parts of the state,” said Deskins. “I think it’s crucial that policy makers recognize that that we tailor our economic development strategies to those very significant differences.”
Some areas – such as Morgantown and the eastern panhandle – are still growing healthily in population.
You can read the complete population study online at http://www.be.wvu.edu/bber/pdfs/BBER-2014-04.pdf