Two main California hashish producers are shedding greater than 100 staff amid a continued downturn within the nation’s largest adult-use marijuana market.
CraftForce Companies, the manufacturing arm of Santa Rosa, Calif.-headquartered CannaCraft, will lay off practically 60 workers at its Santa Rosa operations on Sept. 20, based on a federally mandated Employee Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) discover.
And NorCal Hashish Co., working as GB2 LLC and likewise primarily based in Santa Rosa, will lay off about 49 workers on Sept. 13, based on a WARN discover first reported by The Santa Rosa Press Democrat.
Bret Peace, CEO of mother or father firm Groundwork Holding, tied the cuts to broader trade strain, telling The Press Democrat that it’s a “unhappy day for the trade.”
Why is California hashish producer Cannacraft shedding staff?
“It’s not a call we made frivolously,” he instructed the newspaper. “The trade has moved to a spot the place individuals are extra specialised they usually’re capable of do extra with much less house, and we couldn’t compete with that.
“It was sized to a scale of trade that didn’t materialize.”
CannaCraft, which has operated in Sonoma County for a couple of decade, merged with Southern California retail chain March and Ash in 2022.
Many of the affected Cannacraft staff are manufacturing technicians, a lot of whom are represented by United Meals and Business Employees Native 5, based on the newspaper.
At NorCal, most of these staff deal with packaging and trimming and aren’t represented by a union, The Press Democrat reported.
Are the layoffs a results of California’s market circumstances?
The layoffs come as California’s authorized hashish market contracts regardless of a pledge from the state’s prime regulator that billion-dollar progress is feasible.
Licensed California hashish retailers reported $3.9 billion in hashish gross sales in 2025, a big drop from the $4.2 billion in 2024, based on state knowledge.
It’s additionally the third straight 12 months of decline for the nation’s largest market. California hashish gross sales had been $4.4 billion in 2023, based on the state Division of Tax and Charge Administration.
Native governments have began responding.
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Sonoma County’s Board of Supervisors accredited a tax break in April, reducing the hashish enterprise fee to $0 for qualifying operators in fiscal 2026-27, The Press Democrat reported.
The board additionally created an annual licensing system, with charges beginning at greater than $500, to fund the county’s business hashish program.
Different firms throughout the nation are additionally reducing jobs, with marijuana multistate operator The Cannabist Co. shuttering cultivation operations in Colorado and in New Jersey.
The authorized U.S. hashish trade employed 412,500 folks in early 2026, a 2.7% decline from the 425,002 authorized marijuana jobs reported final 12 months, based on the U.S. Hashish Jobs Report 2026 from Denver-based hashish staffing platform Vangst and Oregon-based hashish knowledge and analysis firm Whitney Economics.
