Tesla is a massive company, employing 140,000 people as of late last year. But over the past month, layoffs have torn through the electric vehicle maker — and now a hiring freeze appears to be in effect in North America.
As of Wednesday, just three positions were listed on Tesla’s job board. They’re all for jobs to join its manufacturing development program in Texas, California, or Nevada, a seven-week training program that promises the “opportunity to transition into a full-time Production Associate” at a Tesla factory.
That’s a far cry from the more than 3,400 postings that were offered across the United States, Mexico, Canada and Puerto Rico as of May 1, according to an archived version of Tesla’s career webpage. (Puerto Rico is listed separately despite being a U.S. territory.) The bulk of those positions were in California, Texas, and Nevada, where the company has sprawling “gigafactories.” Many of the jobs were still posted on Tesla’s website as recently as Tuesday.
On LinkedIn, Tesla advertises 326 jobs. Most are located in China, with a few others in Europe and at least one in the Dominican Republic. Just one, for the manufacturing development program, appears to be located in the U.S.
Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.
This marks the second time that Tesla has almost entirely wiped out its job postings since it began laying off thousands of workers on April 16. Drive Tesla reported later that day that almost all jobs postings across the company’s North American operations had been removed. Just days later, the job board had been restored with thousands of postings.
“With [Tesla’s] rapid growth there has been duplication of roles and job functions in certain areas,” CEO Elon Musk wrote to employees last month as he informed them of job cuts. “As we prepare the company for our next phase of growth, it is extremely important to look at every aspect of the company for cost reductions and increasing productivity.”
“There is nothing I hate more, but it must be done,” he added, expressing his thanks and well wishes for the — at least — 14,000 workers being laid off.
In recent weeks, Musk has been less apologetic about the headcount reductions. In an email to senior Tesla executives, first reported by The Information, Musk said he wanted to be “absolutely hardcore” about issuing more job cuts.
He also said he would ask any executive who retained more than three workers who “don’t obviously pass the excellent, necessary and trustworthy test” to resign. At least three executives departed the company later that week.
More than 20,000 people may have been laid off in that first round of headcount reductions, Bloomberg reported last month. Summer internship offers have been revoked just weeks before their start dates. Almost the entire Supercharger division has been cut, despite Tesla being a major player in the EV charging industry, and the public policy team has been greatly reduced.
Tesla entered its fourth consecutive week of layoffs on Monday, with the latest round affecting service advisers, human resource workers, product engineers, industrializing engineers, and more.
“As of 7:24 PM last night, Elon Musk incorporated me into their massive layoff crew costing me my career, my health benefits, and my sanity,” one now-former Tesla employee wrote Monday on LinkedIn. “Nothing but an email to make us aware of how disposable we were as employees.”
At least six high-profile executives have either already resigned or plan to later this year, including former senior vice president of powertrain and energy Drew Baglino, and senior director of human resources for North America Allie Arebalo.
This article originally appeared on Quartz.
Source Agencies
