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WHEELING — The region’s economy is facing challenges but should see long-term growth, Ohio Valley business professionals and officials heard Wednesday during the 2019 Wheeling Economic Area Outlook Conference.

The event at Wheeling Island Hotel-Casino-Racetrack included presentations about the economic outlook for the state and Wheeling area based on research conducted by West Virginia University’s Bureau of Business and Economic Research for 2020 to 2024.

“In West Virginia, we do have some reasons to be positive a lot of good things have been happening. Jobs are up, tax revenue is up, GDP is up, a lot of metrics are looking good,” said John Deskins, director of the bureau. “But, the improvement isn’t happening everywhere. It’s relatively isolated along a couple different dimensions.”

“I don’t want to get too excited because we still have a lot of economic challenges in West Virginia,” he continued. “I want us to maintain this sense of urgency, to continue to push forward and make positive change to overcome those challenges.”

According to the bureau’s report, the Wheeling Area — encompassing Ohio, Belmont, Marshall and Wetzel counties — added more than 2,400 jobs between early 2017 and late 2018 after losing roughly 2,200 jobs between early 2014 and 2016.

Per capita income also grew above state and national averages in recent years, and Ohio County residents have the highest income levels in the state.

Meanwhile, the level of payrolls in the area has declined in recent quarters as construction activity on several pipeline projects wound down or reached completion, according to the report. The area’s workforce further shrunk by 4,200 people between 2014 and 2018 but rebounded by the same magnitude between early 2018 and mid 2019.

Deskins said the economic forecast for the next year or so looks negative for Wheeling, but he anticipates growth will occur in the long-term by 2024. The bureau expects employment to increase at an average annual rate of .4 percent in the region over the next five years.

“2019, it looks rough, and we actually expect next year to be a bad year for the Wheeling area as well because you have some pipeline construction jobs that will disappear and we’re also expecting the loss of a few health care jobs,” Deskins said. “The good news is, for 2021 through 2024, we expect the rate of job growth in Wheeling to be overall significantly higher than the state and the nation.

“So we’ve got a couple rough years because of natural events that are occurring in the economy that are not indicative of a sour economy, and then in the long run we expect growth that’s much stronger,” he continued.

The region’s economic outlook could exceed expectations if PTT Global Chemical America/Daelim Industrial Co. ultimately decides to build an ethane cracker facility in Belmont County, according to the report.

The report notes that Murray Energy’s decision to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy poses a downside risk to the region’s economic performance given the company’s share of local coal production and employment.

Also taken into account in the report is the recent closure of the Ohio Valley Medical Center in Wheeling and the Eastern Ohio Memorial Hospital in Martins Ferry. The closure is expected to hinder payrolls for the fourth quarter of 2019, but over the long-term a proportion of job cuts and patient services from both hospitals “will be absorbed by other regional providers,” according to the report.

“I’m still realistic,” Deskins said. “I’m not giddy about the overall economy because we still have a lot of challenges and we should still maintain a sense of urgency to continue to make changes in West Virginia.”

One main challenge, Deskins said, is the low labor force participation rate in West Virginia. The rate, based on an area’s working population, is 63% nationally and 54% in the state.

“This is a key area and despite the good news that you’ve heard, this issue is a persistent issue that is still with us,” Deskins said.

Lapses in education and job training, as well as an abundance of drug abuse and health problems, act as barriers to employment in West Virginia, according to Deskins and the report.

“You have people in West Virginia who would like to work, but don’t even bother to look for work because they know they’re not going to get hired, because they know that their job training, job skills and education is not up to par,” he said.

The conference also featured two panels on the topic of “human capital,” with one focusing on education, training and retaining talent and another on health and drug use. The event was put on by WVU, the Wheeling Area Chamber of Commerce, McKinley Carter Wealth Services and the Regional Economic Development Partnership.