Topline
Tesla is holding an online hiring event in China on Thursday, Reuters reported citing an online post by the company, after the electric carmaker’s CEO, Elon Musk, appeared to backtrack on his threat to cut 10% of the company’s workforce and freeze hiring by saying the carmaker will add more factory jobs over the next 12 months.
A man rides a tricycle past the Tesla Shanghai Gigafactory.
Key Facts
According to Reuters, the event will focus on hiring engineers and managers for “smart manufacturing” roles.
Tesla’s Chinese website lists more than 500 openings for full-time manufacturing roles across the country and, according to Reuters, the company is advertising 224 openings on WeChat for Thursday’s event.
China has emerged as both a key market and manufacturing hub for Tesla, with the carmaker producing 60,000 vehicles in the country on average every month.
However, manufacturing output in the country has taken a massive hit over the past few months due to China’s pandemic-related lockdowns.
Big Number
99,290. That’s the total number of Tesla’s active employees as of December 31, 2021, according to the company’s 2021 annual earnings report filed earlier this year with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Key Background
Last week, Musk reportedly sent out an internal email to the company’s executives fretting about the state of the global economy. In the email, Musk purportedly ordered a hiring freeze and outlined the need to cut about 10% of the company’s workforce. The markets reacted negatively to the news, prompting the electric vehicle maker’s shares to nosedive more than 9%. In a follow-up email sent to all Tesla employees a few hours later, Musk said the 10% cut on its workforce will only target salaried employees as the company has “become overstaffed in many areas” and added that manufacturing jobs will not be affected by the cuts. A day later, Musk appeared to backtrack on the hiring freeze diktat, tweeting that the company’s overall headcount will increase over the next 12 months, “but [the number of] salaried [positions] should be fairly flat.”
Tangent
Musk has previously been vocal about his praise for Tesla’s Chinese workers. Speaking at an event last month, he said workers in China were willing to work extremely long hours, sometimes as late as 3 a.m. without leaving the factory. Musk then took a dig at American workers, saying: “People are trying to avoid going to work at all.” Earlier this month Musk reportedly called out Tesla’s office workers who were working from home, ordering them to return to the office for a minimum of 40 hours a week or quit. When asked on Twitter about people who may prefer to work remotely he responded “they should pretend to work somewhere else.”
Further Reading
Tesla goes ahead with China hiring event after Musk job warning (Reuters)
Elon Musk Reportedly Wants To Lay Off 10% Of Tesla’s Workforce As He Frets About The Economy (Forbes)
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2022/06/09/tesla-holds-hiring-event-in-china-after-musks-threat-of-layoffs-and-hiring-freeze/