WHEELING — While the area of Ohio and Marshall counties in West Virginia and Belmont County in Ohio may not seem like a hub of federal employment, hundreds of area residents work for federal agencies that have offices in the region.

According to economic data supplied by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, there are about 600 federal employees in the Wheeling Metropolitan Statistical Area, which includes Ohio, Marshall and Belmont counties, as of January. That number, according to the data, has been steady since October 2020.

By comparison, the Morgantown MSA has about 2,000 federal employees, the Parkersburg-Vienna MSA has about 2,300 federal employees and the Charleston MSA has about 2,100 employees.

There are several federal offices in the Wheeling MSA. Among them are the federal building and United States Courthouse on Chapline Street, which also houses an FBI office and a U.S. General Services Administration office. Wheeling also houses offices for the DEA, the IRS And the Social Security Administration.

There also is the Vet Center near Bethlehem, which is operated under the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

A USDA service center sits in McMechen, while the U.S. Department of Labor has an office in St. Clairsville.

Federal agencies have been in the news recently as President Donald Trump and the new Department of Government Efficiency, overseen by billionaire Elon Musk, have slashed jobs and funding throughout federal departments.

A West Virginia House of Delegates member from Wood Country recently said that more than 200 probationary workers were let go at the Department of Fiscal Services office in Parkersburg.

Also, according to published reports, the Department of Veterans Affairs will begin mass layoffs as early as June, with the department looking to cut more than 80,000 jobs overall.

Officials from the Veterans Health Administration said in a statement that the Wheeling Vet Center should be safe from those cuts.

“The Wheeling (WV) Vet Center is not affected and continues to provide services to Veterans,” the statement read.