Wrong Strategy for Jefferson County Jobs

Rockwool will not bring significant job growth

Rockwool Group says the plant will create “approximately” 150 jobs but declines to provide the public with salary information or details.  

While all jobs are important, to put 150 jobs in perspective, Jefferson County has 57,000 residents and 9,000 K-12 students who will be potentially harmed by the facility.

Jefferson County doesn’t need Rockwool

Jefferson County is already growing rapidly with very low unemployment, and boasts by far the highest median household income in West Virginia.  In fact, our income and unemployment figures are better than the U.S. as a whole.  And our county’s population has grown 50 percent in the last 25 years, while the rest of West Virginia has actually declined.  

Jefferson County is already working, and the way to create more good jobs is deeper integration with tech, government, and medicine in the booming DC metro region.  

Rockwool will instead harm our economy and drive away jobs by making our community a less attractive place to live, work, and visit.  No one wants to send their children to school next to 21 story smokestacks.  This Charleston-led model of subsidizing high-pollution industries has failed the rest of West Virginia and it will fail here.