CHARLESTON - A local development official agrees with a West Virginia University economic outlook that recovery will be slow.

The university predicted in its annual economic forecast that more jobs will be created than will be lost beginning around mid 2010, said George Hammond, associate director of the Bureau of Business and Economic Research at the university. Hammond, who spoke at the 16th West Virginia Economic Outlook Conference in Charleston, said growth will be in professional and business services, health care, leisure and hospitality industries rather than in energy.

The university study predicts employment will grow .7 percent each year to 2014. About 22,600 jobs were lost in the recession.

"It takes until 2013 to replace the jobs that we lost during the recession," Hammond said.

Keith Burdette, president of the Wood County Development Authority, agrees.

"It really will be gradual, painfully gradual," Burdette said.

The service sector covers numerous businesses and services, such as the Bureau of Public Debt, and a broad range of income levels, Burdette said.

"That's a pretty broad category anymore," he said.

Employment should stabilize during the first half of the year, the forecast said. Provided the U.S. economy recovers as well, job growth should start by June, it said.

The service sector is expected to add 4,700 jobs a year over the next five years with the largest increases in the professional and business services and in education and health care.

The forecast is less optimistic for mining and manufacturing. Coal production fell 13.3 percent.

"Mining gradually loses jobs during the forecast," Hammond said. "That's tied to really sort of a slow rebound in overall coal production."

About 5,900 manufacturing jobs were lost. World demand and a weak U.S. dollar may help manufacturers by increasing exports, the forecast said.

While manufacturing job losses have been severe in the region, such as 600 at Century Aluminum in Ravenswood, the region has not been dealt a catastrophic blow, Burdette said. Some companies have called workers back, including DuPont which has recalled contract workers, to replenish inventories, he said.

"Their inventories are being depleted at a slow rate, but nonetheless they are being depleted," Burdette said.