A report released by Leafly and Whitney Economics shows that the U.S. cannabis industry added more than 64,000 jobs in 2018, an employment growth rate of 44 percent.
Last year’s growth was more than double the industry’s progress in 2017, which saw a 21 percent increase in cannabis jobs.
The U.S. economy, according to federal statistics that exclude the cannabis industry, created 2.7 million new jobs as a whole in 2018.
The report analyzed cannabis sector employment data from a variety of sources, including economic formulas, state data, industry surveys, information from operators, and proprietary data. There is no official federal accounting of cannabis industry employment due to cannabis’ federal Schedule I designation.
The sector’s growth is notable in comparison to the recent decline in growth for jobs in the U.S. as a whole.
“Amid the roiling debate over American jobs, the legal cannabis industry remains a substantial and unrecognized engine of grassroots job creation. In 2019, America’s cannabis industry is one of the nation’s greatest economic success stories. That success deserves to be recognized and celebrated.” — Excerpt from the report
The total cannabis job count stated in the report was 211,000; that total raised to 296,000, however, when including ancillary cannabis industry jobs.
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