According to a recent report from the Leafly marijuana firm, the marijuana sector provided another 77,000 employment opportunities during 2020- a 32% surge.
Generally, there’re about 321,000 full-time employment opportunities in the cannabis industry across the thirty-seven states that have decriminalized the crop. The information emphasizes one of the bipartisan arguments that second the reform: authorizing and regulating marijuana is a financial gain.
However, Leafly’s report is more surprising since it indicates noteworthy job growth despite the COVID-19 pandemic. The report is derived from an independent evaluation by data experts, journalists and labour economists from Whitney Economics.
During a time that the United States has experienced high unemployment rates and shuttered businesses, the cannabis sector has proven reliable.
Yoko Miyashita, Leafly’s CEO, said that her firm is proud of the marijuana sector for providing opportunities to almost everyone after a rough 2020. She added that the essential marijuana sector is America’s unrecognized and unseen economic pivot, creating good jobs that have assisted in keeping folks and local economies afloat.
She said that it’s time that the country’s state policies show this reality and decriminalize marijuana while promoting participation and equity for those influenced disproportionately by the Drug War; thus, everyone will merit from this fast-growing industry.
During the past four years, the availability of full-time jobs has improved by around 161%. California’s marijuana market has the biggest job share within the sector (around 58,000), which’s hugely attributable to the federal-tier authorization initiative.
Illinois offered over 8,000 full-time jobs in the cannabis sector since the launch of the record-breaking cannabis sales in 2020.
The report also concluded that currently there are more marijuana workers in America than dentists (127,200), electrical engineers (314,400), or EMTs (260,600).
One of the notable findings is that the pandemic adversely affected staffing despite marijuana sales improving 71% from 2019-2020.
Although the cannabis industry has experienced great gains in user purchases, Leafly pointed out that gender and racial differences have persisted in the market.
