Canadian Cannabis Jobs Are Growing Like A Weed

Canadian Cannabis Jobs Are Growing Like A Weed

Canadian Marijuana Jobs Are Growing Like Weeds from CannabisNet on Vimeo.

As Canada is poised to become the first G7 nation to legalize cannabis recreationally by October 17, this has resulted in a huge hiring spree among those in the sector.

Despite the deadline being two months away, many changes are already being implemented in the Great White North. Postings for jobs in the cannabis industry have quadrupled in the last few months, according to reports from Indeed.com and The Star.

Indeed, a famous Canadian job website, has just shared data that cannabis-related job searches were around four times more last month compared to the same time last year. Although the figures are still small, the growth is dramatic; it specifically says that cannabis-related searches jumped from 6 to 26 in every 10,000 searches.

The data also revealed that employers are looking to expand their teams in a wide range of cannabis-related positions including production assistants, retail budtenders, and quality assurance. “Cannabis-related searches and job postings remain a small corner of the Canadian labor market, but they’re growing rapidly,” writes Brendon Bernard in a report; an Indeed economist.

The career prospects and economic possibilities are expected to continue growing until October 17 and beyond. The increase in job searches became noticeable at the start of 2018, which is when the press highlighted the rising stock prices of many big Canadian cannabis company, the report says. This was followed by more employers getting into a hiring spree, resulting in a 50% increase in cannabis-related job postings particularly between April and May.

Ontario Is A Cannabis Career Hotspot

The report says that most of the job ads were for positions based in Ontario, which is where the headquarters of many of Canada’s biggest cannabis players are located. “With aggressive hiring plans, Canadian cannabis companies are posting openings across a wide range of job types,” writes Bernard. “The main roles in demand are for workers to grow the product and for others to sell it.”

Among the jobs advertised, those that were most in demand included retail workers, quality assurance, maintenance technicians, production assistants, executive assistants, and even nurses who will still be connected to the medical cannabis market.

The Cops Want In On Cannabis Jobs

A report from OurWindsor.Ca reports that ex police officers are now becoming part of the legal cannabis industry, as they join the ranks of the top security positions in Canadian cannabis firms.

The report details the account of Rick Martens, who was a police officer for 26 years prior to his retirement in 2012. Today, Martens in the head of security for Aurora Sky’s 800,000 square-foot cannabis production facility south of Edmonton.

“I get to be with people that, under some circumstances, I probably would have arrested. But now it’s becoming legal, and some of these people are actually very good people,” Martens said. He added that each day he’s learning something new about cannabis, and he says that his team are the “pearl” of his new job.

However, the issue is still hazy with his friends and family. “My wife is still a police officer, so around our table we have some very dynamic discussions in relation to cannabis for example being a gateway drug – that was the perception for years and years,” Martens said.

“A lot of police officers are drawing a fine line in the sand and trying to figure out exactly which side they’re on. But the bottom line is, it’s going to be law, so you’re either part of the solution or you’re part of the problem.”

Martens credits his experience as a police officer when it comes to dealing with the security issues at his new job. In the past, he worked in various units at the Edmonton Police Service, and surveillance is one of them. He was even tasked with raiding illegal marijuana ops at some time.

“We had to go into houses and, search warrants, bag up multiple plants and grow-ops where there’s lights and…. All kinds of stuff that ended up having to be seized,” he says.

The article also includes the account of Randy Jozwiak, an ex fire captain in Calgary who is now the security director for Aurora throughout Canada. In the last four years, Jozwiak was stationed at the company’s very first facility at Aurora Mountain, found north of Calgary.

“When I was on the fire department the only time we ever dealt with drugs was when we found them in homes with house fires, or when we assisted the police in lab raids,” he says.

“I wasn’t too sure about cannabis when I first started in Aurora, but as I learned more and more about cannabis and the effect it had especially for medical, I became more and more positive.”