Cannabis legalization is spreading around the US, and job seekers are highly interested in the brand-new industry, according to a new report from the employment-search firm Indeed.
Since 2016, cannabis-related job searches have skyrocketed 650%, according to the Indeed economist Andrew Flowers. Over the same time period, the number of cannabis-related job postings has quadrupled, from 231 per million in May 2016 to 915 per million in May 2019.
"There are very few industries that have seen a sevenfold increase in job-seeker searches in three years," Flowers said in an interview. "Very few."
In the past year alone, cannabis-related job postings have increased by 90%, according to Flowers. And if you want to land a gig in the booming industry, your best bet is probably in sales and retail.
The most common cannabis job posting on Indeed is for "budtender," which is a person who works at a dispensary and helps customers navigate the plethora of pot products. Coming in at No. 2 is "sales associate," followed by "sales representative."
The second basket of popular cannabis jobs is all around the growing and cultivating of the crop itself, for positions like "grower," "trimmer," and "agriculture technician." And in the third category, medical-cannabis companies are hiring pharmacists and physicians to help research cannabis-based drugs and diagnose patients.
This year, Harvest has the most job openings among US cannabis companies, followed by Smokers Choice and Cresco Labs. On the cannabis-tech side, Weedmaps is hiring a lot of data scientists and software engineers.
A quick scan of Harvest's job board shows hiring across divisions including sales, marketing, retail, and legal, meaning there are many opportunities for those with different skill sets to jump into the cannabis industry.
Cannabis is legal for adult use in 11 states and medically legal in 33 states. Illinois became the latest state to legalize earlier this year.
- Read more:
- 'It's a once in a decade opportunity': How top VC firms like Greycroft and Lerer Hippeau are cautiously opening their doors to the potentially $194 billion cannabis industry
- ELLO Capital, a boutique investment bank founded by JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs and Macquarie veterans, is chasing cannabis deals in the red-hot US market
- Curaleaf just snapped up Grassroots Cannabis for $875 million, making it the biggest cannabis retailer. We talked to Curaleaf's CEO about what's next.
- CBD and hemp startups are using creative loopholes to skirt Facebook's ad ban. Here's how they're doing it.
