Tracking the Economic Contributions West Virginia’s Forest Products Industry During the COVID-19 Pandemic Era: A Look at 2019 Through 2022 Data

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Abstract West Virginia’s forest products industry’s (FPI) contributions to the state’s economy have historically been influenced by factors such as increasing global competition, increasing automation, recessions, the shale gas boom, and more recently, the COVID-19 pandemic. However, there are limited data regarding the impact of the pandemic on the industry and state economy. Given its importance to the state economy, it is therefore important to examine the effect of the pandemic on the industry and the state economy and its recovery postpandemic. This study quantifies the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on West Virginia’s FPI from 2019 through 2022, highlighting significant recovery postpandemic. As expected, during the peak of the pandemic spanning the periods of 2019 and 2020 marked a decline in the West Virginia FPI performance across all measures of economic contributions. However, the magnitude and length of the adverse impact is not as significant as the impact of the Great Recession. The forestry sector experienced the largest decline in terms of direct and total economic contributions while the furniture sector remained relatively resilient. By 2021, the industry already experienced recovery which continued through 2022. In fact, 2022 levels were higher than the prepandemic levels except for employment and direct employee compensation. In general, most sectors of the industry have shown recovery and are even performing better than before the pandemic, except for the logging sector. The West Virginia FPI has proven its resiliency during the pandemic and capitalized on opportunities to respond to the changing demand for forest products.