For the first time in the history of the $26 billion legal pot market, employment declined last year, according to a new study exclusively obtained by Forbes. But analysts have high hopes for 2023.ere’s a real buzzkill for the cannabis industry: After six years of double-digit job growth, employment dropped 2% in 2023.Forbes
Pot stocks saw their share prices drop 50% to 70% year over year. At the same time, while cannabis companies saw sales jump an average of 20% during the first two years of the pandemic—where lockdowns caused a dramatic rise in the vice economy, including“When the pandemic began to recede in 2022, cannabis demand returned to pre-pandemic levels,” the
Most jobs in the market, some 31%, are in farming, with most farm workers making $16-$20 an hour. Retail stores make up 23% of all cannabis jobs, with the largest role being a budtender making $17-$28 an hour. Seventeen percent of employment is ancillary, general counsel, controller, marketing, human resources, all of which pay between $55,000 a year to $225,000. Manufacturing jobs make up 17% while wholesale jobs are 7% and distribution is 2%.
“As more states opened legal stores [Colorado] lost some of its allure as a cannabis tourism destination,” the report explains. “Consumers in nearby states—New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Oklahoma, Montana—no longer need to travel to experience the thrill of purchasing regulated cannabis.”