The legal cannabis industry has been growing more quickly than almost any other business in the USnited States. This is due to more states\’ approval of cannabis for both medicinal and recreational use. A leading industry analysis firm shows that the legal cannabis industry added many new jobs in 2020. This total number of jobs is 77,000. Nationally, the industry has 321,000 jobs in the cannabis field, and the increase is 32 percent over the previous year, 2019, when the economy overall shrank by 3.5 percent. This figure pertains to jobs in the 37 out of 50 states and the District of Columbia, where cannabis is legal for both recreational and medicinal use.
A publisher and editor of a cannabis newsletter stated that at a time when workers were being laid off from jobs, the cannabis industry was adding new jobs at a high rate. There are currently nearly twice the number of people employed in the cannabis industry than there are in the mining industry, according to data by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The number of cannabis workers is also greater than those employed in both the medical and diagnostic laboratories fields. There are almost as many cannabis employees as the 325,000 Americans who work in the performing arts or spectator sports sectors. Further statistics show that there are about half as many people employed in the cannabis business as employed by the US Postal Service.
A strategist who was a former top official at the National Cannabis Industry Association stated that the increase in the number of jobs is growing quickly, since cannabis markets are growing quickly, as well. New states are going online with sales, older states are peaking in sales and the decades-long stigma of the past is continuing to subside.