Marijuana Business Magazine April 2020

Marijuana Business Magazine | April 2020 54 C annabis industry executives with an eye to filling positions in their companies would no doubt love to have a crystal ball trained on the labor market. While staring into the ball, industry executives will want to know: Which cannabis industry skill sets will be most in demand and command the highest salaries in the coming years, and which positions will be most in danger of getting axed? While recruiters and company executives identified positions they believe will be either in demand or vulnerable to cuts—and, not surprisingly, their opinions didn’t always line up—the most important factor that determines whether a particular position is in danger isn’t necessarily the type of job but the health of the company and where it might be overstaffed or understaffed. “When Aurora (Cannabis in Alberta, Canada) laid off 500 people (in February), that was every type of position,” said Karson Humiston, CEO of Denver cannabis recruitment agency Vangst. The point? If a company is doing poorly, any post could be in danger, no matter what. “It’s less about the roles and more about the company and the company’s cash-flow position, the runway, their path to profitability,” Humiston said. “If I was looking to join a company, I would want to understand how much they have on hand.” Holly Hamann, chief marketing officer at Würk, a Denver-based human resources software firm, agreed. “If you look at the companies that have had to lay off folks in the past six months, there’s really an interesting variety of scenarios,” she said. “There just isn’t any predictability, so it’s hard to say which jobs are most vulnerable. The layoffs that have happened, happened because the companies had problems that forced them to cut jobs.” Although a company’s health is the ultimate decider in what positions are in demand and which are not, a few positions are hotter than others. WHICH JOBS ARE HOT— By Omar Sacirbey ANDWHICH ARE NOT?