Sources & References
Metro Job Market Pulse · Huntington-Ashland, WV-KY-OH MSA · October 2026
Every advertised-pay, job-posting and industry figure in this briefing comes from WageScape's own database of active job postings. The sources below back the external facts cited in the written analysis.
Sources cited in this report
This Month's Takeaways
West Virginia labor force participation at 54.5%, lowest nationally
West Virginia Chamber of Commerce — State workforce participation analysis for 2026
West Virginia lost 1,800 net payroll jobs over 12 months, ranks 45th nationally
Joint Economic Committee / Workforce WV — State payroll employment release, September 2026
Local Economic Conditions
Huntington-Ashland job postings rose 12.5% year-over-year in mid-2026
JobBoardDoctor — Metro job posting growth report citing Vertiv-linked manufacturing demand
Huntington-Ashland MSA unemployment rate was 4.50% in June 2026
Bureau of Labor Statistics — Local Area Unemployment Statistics for Huntington-Ashland MSA
Looking Ahead
National payroll gains for July and August revised down a combined 60,000
Bureau of Labor Statistics — National employment situation report revisions
Mining and extraction WARN filings affected 1,497 workers in West Virginia
UseFootnote WARN tracking — State WARN notice aggregation, 24 months through August 2026
How the numbers are calculated
- Advertised pay is the median of the pay ranges employers publish in active job postings in this metro. It is not survey or payroll data.
- Percent changes compare the latest six full months with the six months before that, for the same metro and sector.
- Sectors group postings by the employer's industry (NAICS) classification into ten sectors. Where a metro has too few postings in a sector, the state figure is used instead.
- Role pay trends use the same comparison windows. "Stable" means a change of less than 3%; "moderate" 3–10%; "significant" more than 10%.
Official data for comparison