Forget The Layoffs: Cannabis Industry Still Huge Job Creator

Leafly jobs report hones in on the numbers of workers in the marijuana industry

Countless reports have suggested that the cannabis industry has bitten off more than it can chew and is now face down in a puddle of hard times. There is, most notably, the tanking of pot-related stocks. More concerning, however, are stories indicating that a slew of layoffs is underway in the business of growing and selling weed, which, at one time, was touted as economic salvation for the American working class. But is the situation really as dire as the Internet tells us? Are their cultivation wizards, budtenders and others that once collected a paycheck from pot resting in a pit of despair? Well, probably not as much as you might imagine. It turns out that the cannabis sector is still one of the fastest-growing job markets in the United States, and it is achieving this without so much as a smidgen of support from the federal government.

The cannabis industry presently employs 243,700 “full-time equivalent” workers nationwide, which is up 15% from where it was last year. This means that more than 33,000 people are now getting that weed money than there were in 2019. That’s not too shabby for a business sect that is still technically trying to keep Uncle Sam from swooping in with all guns blazing and dragging them to jail.

Still, it might surprise you to learn that the U.S. Bureau of Labor doesn’t count this job growth in its monthly report. So, when you hear that the national economy added 225,000 jobs in January, none of those positions have anything to do with the business of weed. It’s part of the reason that cannabis resource Leafly decided several years ago to start issuing its own jobs report. It wanted to show America just how impactful the cannabis trade is becoming and perhaps outline its importance for thousands of workers in those states where marijuana is legal.

“If the U.S. government doesn’t count your job, in many ways, your job doesn’t count,” Leafly Senior Editor Bruce Barcott said in a statement. “We created the Leafly Jobs Report in 2017 to show that the cannabis industry is an unseen economic growth engine. Four years later, that remains true.

While it is true that some cannabis firms have had to downsize a bit to stay afloat, the damage hasn’t been all that severe. Hundreds of people employed by cannabis firms in the U.S. and Canada have been let go in recent months, but a lot more opportunities are being created by other companies in the game.

Read the full article at CannabisNow