How many jobs does the legal marijuana industry offer? This is a common question, and the government rarely answers it positively.
Since cannabis is still illegal at the level of federal law, employment data agencies such as the Bureau of Labor Statistics ignore all jobs related to the industry.
It’s a pity that they may have missed one of the hottest areas of work in the near future.
In the past three months, Leafy’s data team, working with Whitney economics, has aggregated the total number of full-time jobs in the legal marijuana industry on a state by state basis.
Currently, there are more than 211000 jobs offered by the legal marijuana industry in the United States. In 2018, the number of jobs added was about 64000, more than a barracks in Chicago.
In manufacturing, 2018 is the fastest growth year for jobs since 1997.
In addition to directly participating in the work of the industrial chain, the legalization of medical marijuana in 34 states and the legalization of recreational marijuana in 10 states also provide more opportunities for people in other industries. Lawyers, accountants, consultants, media companies and marketing companies, for example, all work indirectly to legalize marijuana. Taking these jobs into account, the U.S. marijuana industry as a whole has created 296000 new jobs.
By comparison, there are currently 52000 coal miners, 69000 breweries and 112000 textile workers in the United States.
In the United States, the employment rate always influences the presidential election. For example, former President Bill Clinton is committed to leading a large number of workers out of the recession in the 1990s, while Donald Trump won the election in 2016 largely because of the anxiety of people about the transfer of jobs overseas.
In 2018, the mainstream media predicted that the recovery of manufacturing industry in the United States would bring about a 2.7% employment growth rate.
The legal marijuana industry is currently the largest job creation machine in the United States. The marijuana industry’s workforce grew by 21% in 2017 and 44% in 2018, with employment expected to grow at least another 20% in 2019. This means that the work related to legal cannabis will increase by 110% in just three years from January 2017 to January 2020.
The report, released on leafy, provides a nationwide overview of direct and indirect jobs created by the legalization of cannabis.
