How West Virginia refuses a common solution to shrinking workforce (2024)

West Virginiahas the second worst labor shortage in the entire country because its population is aging and people simply aren't moving to the state.

Yet while other states includingMaine, Indiana and Utah have called on immigrants to shore up their employment numbers, politicians at the local and state level in West Virginiaare unwilling to do the same to help staff restaurants, nursing homes and other businesses, theWall Street Journal reported.

Instead they are cracking down on illegal immigration to appeal to one of the most right-leaning voter bases in the country. Former President Donald Trump won the state with 69 percent of the vote in 2020, his second most dominant victory after Wyoming.

West Virginia Governor Jim Justicesigned legislation last year banning 'sanctuary cities' and deployed the state's own National Guard troops to the US-Mexico border to stem the flow of migrants.

State lawmakers have also introduced bills that would force businesses to conduct additional screening for unauthorized workers, punish companies for transporting migrants who are deportable under American law and create a program to enable state authorities to remove even some immigrants with legal status to work.

All of these efforts to deter migrants from coming to work in West Virginia ignores the fact that the state has the lowest foreign born population in the US at just 1.8 percent.

Plus, as West Virginia deals with a historic work shortage, it is the only state in the union with fewer residents than it had in 1940, according to the Journal - something Governor Justice himself acknowledgedas a problem back in 2021.

Local business groups backing manufacturers, bankers, real-estate agents, builders and auto dealers say they are vehemently against the proposed worker-screening legislation and are lobbying to kill the measure.

'We should avoid sending messages, either overtly or through our actions, that this is not a good place to come if you're willing to work,' Steve Roberts, president of the West Virginia Chamber of Commerce, told the Journal.

He added that the state doesn't need only doctors and engineers but manual laborers to 'do the work that some of us have just gotten too old to do.'

Nowhere is this worker shortage more pronounced than in Pendleton County and its county seat, the town of Franklin.

Jay Nesselrodt, a general contractor in the Franklin area has to turn down jobs every single week because he can't hire enough workers.

Recently, he and his wife, who is a lawyer, were renovating the Fisher Mountain golf course by themselves, whileNesselrodt had to juggle emails, phone calls and his paint roller.

'I'm supposed to be managing people,' he told the Journal. 'Instead, I'm painting.'

He has long relied on a group of Latin American immigrants who drive from northern Virginia to help with the physical labor, but they were busy that day.

'They're like family,' he said, explaining that they came to his brother's funeral two years ago.

Star Hotel and Restaurant, which is right smack dab in the middle of what would be considered Franklin's downtown, is struggling just as much asNesselrodt's general contracting business.

'We can't find help anywhere,' said Felicia Kimble, whose family owns the place.

The restaurant, which serves classic American fare,has had to stop serving breakfast on weekdays or opening on weekends.

But things are perhaps most dire at Franklin's local senior center, which provides care to elderly people.

Yet despite West Virginia having one of the highest median ages in the country, it is struggling to care for its older citizens due to the worker shortage.

'We advertise all the time,' said Janice Lantz, the director of Pendleton County Senior Center. 'We can't hire a direct-care worker.'

During the five years Lantz has run the center, the number of workers has declined from 30 to 12.

This is partly because the pay of $10 to $12 an hour isn't attractive to the local population. As a result, the seniors who need help getting out of bed, getting bathed and getting fed, are on waiting lists to be given at-home care.

Lantz saidabout 15 people are waiting - almost as many as her center serves.

Around five people on the list died before getting at-home care, Lantz said.

Foreign-born people, who make up around 13 percent of the US population, disproportionately take jobs in eldercare. Roughly 32 percent of home care workers are immigrants, according to nonprofit PHI.

These anecdotes of flailing West Virginia establishments are supported by the data, which show that the number of locations where business is conducted in West Virginia declined 9.3 percent between 2011 and 2021, the Journal reported based on Census Bureau figures.

The problem has become so bad thatformer Intuit CEO and West Virginia native Brad D. Smith, now president of Marshall University in Huntington, has launched a program that offers $12,000 checks, free co-working space and outdoor-gear rentals to remote workers who relocate to the state.

The program is only open to US citizens and green card holders.

'We suffer from this vicious cycle,' John Deskins, director of West Virginia University's bureau of business and economic research, told the Journal.

'The people who move away tend to be younger, more educated, more prepared for the workforce. And it makes the remain-ers older.'

Other states with similar issues to West Virginia are choosing to recruit labor from outside their borders, especially in the wake of President Joe Biden making roughly 470,000 Venezuelans eligible to work under 'temporary protected status' last year.

The Democratic-led capital city of Kansas is willing to pay migrants $15,000 to move thereand fill approximately 7,000 open jobs.

Maine, one of just three states that have a population older than West Virginia's, announced plans for a new state government office in January that would be charged with 'welcoming and supporting immigrants to strengthen Maine's workforce.'

Even Republican states, including Utah and Indiana, have asked Congress to let states sponsor immigrant visas to help fill hundreds of thousands of vacant jobs, with Utah also extending in-state tuition to refugees and asylum seekers, the Journal reported.

Plans like these have the potential to exacerbate housing shortages or lower competing workers' wages, but if West Virginia pursued policies welcoming immigrants, those issues likely wouldn't come to pass.

That's because the statehad the nation's fourth-highest rate of vacant housing and the second-highest rate of job openings in 2023, according to Census data.

But the point is moot when West Virginia isn't trying to bringing more immigrant workers to live in its rolling hills and sleepy towns.

Even if the state made a big reversal tomorrow, immigration experts told the Journal that new migrants are unlikely to move to West Virginia in big numbers because it lacks existing immigrant communities.

Nonetheless, the state's worker shortage is still a very real problem.

In a bid to attract labor and businesses, Governor Justice last March signed what he called 'the largesttax cut in the history of West Virginia.'

The Republican-dominated legislature is also considering tightening the purse strings on the state's unemployment benefits to get more people back to work.

Finally, West Virginia has lowered the qualifications you need to become a public-school teacher.

Rabbi Victor Urecki, who set up a short-lived refugee resettlement program in Charleston in 2016, told the Journal that West Virginia has become less welcoming and that Trump has tapped into the deep mistrust people have for outsiders.

'When things are falling apart,' he said, 'it's hard for people to look in the mirror.'