Here’s what jobs pay in Connecticut’s growing cannabis industry and a tight labor market

Organizers of a two-day cannabis employment fair in Rocky Hill said they expected about 100 job-seekers, a decent number in a growing industry that’s also benefiting from the tightest labor market in decades.

Stephen Nitchke-Ellison retired as a manager four years ago at a wholesale distributor of communications and networking products and is looking to get back into the workforce so his wife can soon retire. A medicinal marijuana user to soothe chronic back pain for the last seven years, he said he’s had an enduring interest in cannabis.

“I want to learn from the bottom up,” Nitchke-Ellison, a Milford resident, said this week. “I’m ready to work. If you put me in a station and tell me what to do I’ll do it all day.”

Verano Holdings Corp., a multi-state cannabis operation, organized the job fair to fill dispensary retail and cultivation jobs. It operates CTPharma, a 210,000 square foot cultivation and processing facility in Rocky Hill, and two retail outlets in Meriden and Waterbury.

Verano is considering additional retail options in Connecticut, including social equity joint venture dispensary partnerships and opportunities “for wider distribution of its products ahead of the state’s transition to adult-use cannabis sales,” a spokeswoman said.

Connecticut legalized adult-use marijuana last year and businesses are competing for state licenses and the industry has yet to take shape.

Medical marijuana has been legal in Connecticut for a decade and may be used for more than three dozen conditions ranging from cancer to cystic fibrosis and epilepsy.

Jobs pay between $15 and $18 an hour, said Michael Evans, head recruiter at Verano. The company is looking to hire cultivators, packagers and workers in security and maintenance. Employees must be over 21 and pass a background check.

“Unless there’s a question mark, they’re good,” he said.

Such a “question mark” might be if a job applicant indicates that working at a cannabis business is a party, Evans said. It’s work, requiring fertilizing and watering plants, packaging and dealing with customers.

Strong job applicants could be from the hospitality industry, experience in garden centers and landscape businesses or in manufacturing, he said.

David Belsky, chief executive officer of FlowerHire, a recruiting firm for executives and managers in the cannabis industry, said his end of the business is “going great.” He’s placed nearly 1,000 top employees in five years and the industry is thriving as other businesses navigate an increasingly difficult economy, he said.

“Though some companies are not hitting their earnings, we’re seeing consistent demand for our services,” he said in an interview.

A study by the cannabis website Leafly reported 428,059 full-time cannabis jobs in the U.S. as of January, a 33% increase in a year and the fifth consecutive year of annual job growth greater than 27%, it said.

Labor markets in Connecticut and the U.S. are in one of the “tightest periods” in decades with more total job openings than unemployed workers for the better part of the past year, according to the state Department of Labor.

Unemployment rates have fallen below 5% and job openings have been at or near all-time highs during the first quarter of 2022 and the number of unemployment recipients in Connecticut has fallen to the lowest level since 1988.

Stephen Singer can be reached at [email protected].