Sep. 6—Restaurants and other service industry businesses aren’t having trouble hiring employees because people don’t want to work, but because they’ve found better-paying jobs, said state Rep. Judd Strom, R-Copan, in a recent Facebook post.

“When you see the Help Wanted signs, consider the idea that they’re not there because people don’t want to work anymore,” he wrote. “They’re there because the people that left those jobs found a better job.”

In fact, he believes wouldbe employees are finding these “better jobs” in Oklahoma’s relatively new medical marijuana industry.

Medical marijuana jobs pay two or three times the amount of typical restaurant wages. Employees also enjoy a “far less stressful work environment and a much more amiable clientele,” Strom said.

The National Restaurant Association reports more than 7,000 restaurants and drinking establishments in Oklahoma, according to the Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Association. Per ZipRecruiter, those jobs pay an average employee wage of $11.18 per hour, he said.

Compare that to more than 8,000 marijuana grow operations in the state with an average pay of $17 per hour, and more than 2,000 medical marijuana dispensaries with an hourly wage of $23.69, Strom said.

Strom said his constituents are constantly urging him to end unemployment benefits because they believe it keeps people from wanting to work.

“Nobody on unemployment quit their job. They were working then fired or laid off,” he said. “We are back to pre-Covid unemployment numbers. In fact, more people are working in Oklahoma now than before Covid.”

Strom said his Facebook post is not an endorsement of the state’s medical marijuana industry, just an observation about how it has changed Oklahoma’s economic landscape.

“Consider this: If each marijuana business in the state only paid the owner and one employee... That’s 20,000 good-paying jobs that didn’t exist two years ago,” he wrote. “If each operation only paid the owner and two employees... That’s 30,000 jobs. I know of several local grow operations that employ over 40 people.”

Strom said the service industry will likely need to raise wages to be competitive in hiring.

“Go back up and look at the wages and think about scrubbing pots and pans or filling ketchup bottles at midnight on a Saturday night vs a 9-5 [job] dispensing gummy bears in a clean, chill boutique shop with great music. They’re not coming back,” he said.