Wage earners who joined New Mexico’s authorized hashish trade sometimes earn greater than they did of their earlier, non-marijuana jobs, in response to a brand new article within the newest subject of the state Division of Workforce Options’s month-to-month Labor Market Assessment.
“The info present that for some folks, the grass is greener within the hashish trade,” the report says.
By the top of final yr, 4,666 staff in New Mexico had been employed within the state’s authorized marijuana trade, which formally opened its doorways in April 2022. Almost 9 in 10 of these workers, the Division of Workforce Options report discovered, labored within the retail sector.
Throughout its first yr of authorized gross sales to adults, New Mexico noticed greater than $300 million in gross sales of leisure hashish merchandise — a milestone Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D) touted final month. Medical marijuana receipts, in the meantime, totaled one other $187.4 million.
Fascinated by what New Mexico’s hashish trade appears like in #NewMexico? Take a look at the particular article within the April Labor Market Assessment.#NMCannabisIndustry #NMJobs #NMWorkforce #AprilLaborMarketReview #NMBusiness #NMJobMarket pic.twitter.com/DFTKJni6Jk
— NMDWS (@NMDWS) May 31, 2023
In line with the brand new state labor report printed on the finish of final month, common weekly wages for hashish staff had been $560 on the finish of 2022 — decrease than for many different industries. However by inspecting wage information for hashish workers going again to the start of 2021, analysts discovered that those that joined the marijuana trade sometimes noticed a pay increase from their prior jobs.
“One cause why members of this cohort could have left their earlier place of employment to work within the hashish trade is to earn greater wages,” the report says. “Analyzing their wage information exhibits that their common weekly wage elevated as soon as they joined the hashish trade.”
New Mexico Division of Workforce Options
Wage information for roughly a 3rd of hashish staff indicated they’d come from different industries. The report says that “Commerce, transportation, and utilities had the best share (11.1 %), adopted by leisure and hospitality (8.4 %), schooling and well being companies (4.4 %) {and professional} and enterprise companies (4.2 %).”
One other quarter of staff had no reported wage knowledge, suggesting they’d moved from one other state, simply graduated or had been self-employed, the report says. And practically 4 in 10 wage information got here from hashish companies, “which suggests they had been already working within the trade.”
New Mexico Division of Workforce Options
Throughout New Mexico, 151 hashish companies had been working within the state in the course of the fourth quarter of 2022. Three-quarters (74.2 %) had been retail shops or on-line platforms. One other 21 grew and cultivated crops, 10 companies had been processors, 4 had been wholesalers and 4 carried out actions not specified within the report.
Most companies had been positioned round inhabitants facilities, the report discovered. Almost 1 in 3 had been primarily based in Bernalillo County, which is the state’s most populous and the place Albuquerque is positioned.
New Mexico Division of Workforce Options
Officers in different states have additionally been speaking up marijuana gross sales in current months, together with neighboring Arizona, the place the year-end complete for 2022 adult-use hashish purchases reached $1.4 billion.
In Massachusetts, the state’s leisure market formally exceeded $4 billion in gross sales in January after launching in 2018.
Conversely, a high Wisconsin senator just lately launched a legislative evaluation that confirmed simply how a lot cash her state misplaced out to Illinois final yr, with Wisconsin residents who lack a regulated market going throughout the border and spending greater than $121 million on marijuana.
In New Mexico, the governor stated final month that she is “excited to see what the long run holds as we proceed to develop an progressive and secure adult-use hashish trade.” Regulation and Licensing Division Superintendent Linda Trujillo, for her half, stated the state is “trying ahead to much more progress in yr two.”
Lujan Grisham additionally just lately signed a invoice to mechanically expunge previous hashish crimes, though she opted to veto a separate measure that might have stopped incarcerating folks for sure drug offenses.
State lawmakers, in the meantime just lately superior a invoice to create a state physique that might research the potential of launching a psilocybin remedy program for sufferers with sure psychological well being circumstances who may gain advantage from utilizing the psychedelic. And the state’s medical marijuana program final month added insomnia as a qualifying situation.
Photograph courtesy of Mike Latimer.
The submit New Mexico Employees Becoming a member of The Marijuana Trade Earn Extra Than In Their Earlier Non-Hashish Jobs, State Says appeared first on Marijuana Second.