Leafly Annual Report Shows U.S. Cannabis Industry Supports 428,059 Jobs

Leafly’s 2022 jobs report examines the latest cannabis jobs data, providing an in-depth look at the latest cannabis industry data as well as predictions for the future.

In partnership with Whitney Economics, Leafly released its 2022 annual jobs report on February 23. The report states that approximately 428,059 full-time jobs were supported by the legal cannabis industry last year (as of January 2022). This includes a variety of cannabis-related roles, from “plant-touching” jobs like cultivation and retail to side jobs like accounting, legal, security or construction. The latest job count is a sharp increase compared to previous years, which reflected 321,000 jobs in 2021; 243,700 jobs in 2020; 211,000 in 2019; 149,300 in 2018; and 122,800 in 2017 (the first year the vacancies report was released).

“In the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic, the American cannabis industry has sold nearly $25 billion worth of products and created more than 107,000 new jobs – enough to fill the Rose Bowl and beyond,” the statement said Introduction to the report. “That’s a 33 percent increase in jobs in a single year. And it’s the fifth straight year of annual job growth of more than 27 percent. No other industry in America can match it. For the past year, America’s legal cannabis industry has added more than 280 new jobs every day. In 2021, someone was hired for a cannabis-assisted job roughly every two minutes of the workday.” The report also offers other comparisons to put things in perspective, including the fact that the US has three times as many cannabis workers as Dentists exist and that more people work with cannabis than hairdressers combined. hairdressers and beauticians.

It also breaks down the top 10 cannabis markets for jobs, including California, Colorado, Michigan, Illinois, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania (medical only), Florida (medical only), Arizona, Washington, and Oregon. However, the report also recommends that Arizona, California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, New Jersey, New Mexico, and New York, for various reasons listed, such as potential of certain markets that are new or about to begin, or mature markets with a competing illegal Market.

The report’s authors estimate that these numbers will continue to rise in the coming years, but there are plenty of opportunities for growth. “In the eight years since the first nationwide adult-use cannabis stores opened, the industry has created hundreds of thousands of new jobs in the United States. And there are still many that have yet to be created. Whitney Economics calculates that total cannabis sales in 2021 — just under $25 billion — represent only about 25 percent of the total potential U.S. cannabis market,” the report said. It goes on to say that 75 percent of the cannabis industry’s demand is met through illicit cultivation and sale, and it is estimated that the cannabis industry could be worth as much as $45 billion by 2025.

This data continues to be an important milestone in tracking industry growth, even amid historic job losses during the pandemic. According to NORML Political Director Morgan Fox, the future looks bright. “At a time when the rest of the economy is struggling and people are leaving their jobs in droves, the legal cannabis industry is thriving, showing exponential job growth and attracting talented and motivated individuals from across the workforce,” Fox said. “But outdated federal laws define these same individuals as criminals, and as a result, they are often denied access to banking services, housing, education, international travel and citizenship. It is high time Congress ended Prohibition and started treating this robust regulated market like any other industry.”