Cannabis Sales Are Up, But Jobs Are Down: Why Insiders Call It A Strategic Reset For Survival
The U.S. cannabis industry added $1.3 billion in new legal sales in 2024, yet it lost more than 15,000 full-time jobs.
That’s the contradiction at the center of the 2025 Cannabis Jobs Report, released Tuesday by cannabis staffing firm Vangst in partnership with Whitney Economics. The annual analysis tracks job growth, revenue trends and workforce dynamics across every regulated state market.
According to the report, the U.S. cannabis sector now supports 425,002 full-time equivalent (FTE) jobs, a 3.4% decline from 2023. This drop came despite $30.1 billion in legal retail sales, a 4.5% increase year-over-year.
“The cannabis industry has shifted from a phase of hypergrowth to one of operational discipline,” said Karson Humiston, CEO of Vangst. “Despite a slight decline in jobs, cannabis remains one of the nation’s leading employment sectors.”
A Flatline In Jobs, But A Jump In Sales
This marks the first notable employment contraction since the post-pandemic boom. Between 2017 and 2023, the industry added hundreds of thousands of new roles, but 2024 brought headwinds like tax pressure, oversupply and regulatory bottlenecks.