Forbes names West Virginia among best U.S. employers

The State of West Virginia has been named to the Forbes list of America’s Best Employers 2022, Gov. Jim Justice announced. The list includes businesses from all industries, not only governments, according to the governor, and West Virginia was one of only two states to crack the list’s top 250.

Justice said the honor was par the course in recent years as West Virginia gains national attention as a destination for outdoor recreation and leisure living residency.

“West Virginia continues to emerge on the national stage as one of the very best places anywhere to visit, live, raise a family, and get a great job," Justice said.

"We’ve been named to list after list of top locations by several national publications. Today, it’s our incredible state employees being recognized with this latest honor."'

The list can be viewed on the Forbes website.

Justice said the announcement accompanies his recent proposal to raise pay for state employees.

“Our state employees have done so much great work to keep West Virginia moving forward, but they’ve been especially good as we’ve navigated this pandemic," Justice said.

"That’s why I was proud to announce recently that I would be proposing another historic five percent pay raise for all state employees—our third since 2018—plus a one-time 2.5 percent pay supplement for all of our people to help fight the rising cost of inflation that we’ve seen all across our country.”

“At the end of the day, I could not be more proud of this tremendous achievement and how we’ve kept the ball rolling to the point where the outside world is finally discovering we truly are the diamond in the rough that everybody missed,” he added.

“It’s a great time to be a West Virginian.”

Forbes partnered with market research company Statista to pinpoint the companies liked best by employees. To determine the list, Statista surveyed 60,000 Americans working for businesses with at least 1,000 employees. All were conducted anonymously, allowing participants to openly share their opinions.

The respondents were asked to rate, on a scale of zero-to-10 how likely they’d be to recommend their employer. They were also asked to rate their companies on factors such as working conditions, development opportunities, and compensation.

The final list ranks the 500 large (with more than 5,000 employees) and 500 midsize (with 1,000 to 5,000 employees) employers that received the most recommendations.