Tesla is pressing ahead with its workforce-reduction plans, with a notice the carmaker filed with the Texas Workforce Commission showing it is slashing 2,688 jobs in Austin, the location of its headquarters and site of a major factory.
The notice, which was issued under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act that requires employers to provide a 60-day notice before layoffs, was filed with the Texas Workforce Commission on April 22 and obtained by The Epoch Times.
The WARN notification indicates that Tesla’s job cuts in Austin will begin on June 14, 2024, and will see a total of 2,688 employees permanently laid off.
The layoffs will take place over a two-week period, according to the notice. There was no indication how many of the job cuts would be at Tesla’s manufacturing plant, where the Model Y and Cybertruck are made, and how many at the company’s headquarters.
Tesla did not respond to a request for clarification on how many factory jobs would be cut.
Tesla’s Biggest Round of Layoffs Ever
Tesla announced on April 15 that it was slashing more than 10 percent of its global workforce of around 140,000 staff, which means at least 14,000 jobs are on the chopping block, according to an internal company-wide email seen by The Epoch Times.
“Over the years, we have grown rapidly with multiple factories scaling around the globe,” Tesla owner Elon Musk said in the email. “With this rapid growth, there has been duplication of roles and job functions in certain areas.
It’s not clear which departments at Tesla will be affected.
“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,” Mr. Musk continued.
“As part of this effort, we have done a thorough review of the organization and made the difficult decision to reduce our headcount by more than 10 percent globally. There is nothing I hate more, but it must be done. This will enable us to be lean, innovative and hungry for the next growth phase,” he added.
Tesla announced last week that it will lay off 285 employees in Buffalo, New York, as part of its workforce-cutting plans.
The company said the Buffalo layoffs would start on July 15 and that they were due to economic factors. Tesla has a total of 2,032 employees across the two impacted sites in Buffalo, meaning that the cuts will affect around 14 percent of its workers there.
Investors Brace for Worst Results in Seven Years
The job cut announcements follow a disappointing quarterly delivery report in which Tesla states it delivered 386,810 vehicles, falling short of its fourth-quarter 2023 deliveries by nearly 100,000 and marking a year-over-year sales drop.Tesla hasn’t delivered fewer vehicles than the same prior-year period since 2020 and hasn’t recorded quarterly deliveries below 400,000 since the third quarter of 2022.
The decline, according to Tesla, has to do with “the early phase of the production ramp of the updated Model 3” at its Fremont, California, factory and shipping delays caused by the Yemeni Houthi attacks on ships in the Red Sea and an arson attack at its manufacturing plant outside of Berlin.
In January, Tesla predicted slower growth this year, saying that its vehicle volume growth rate in 2024 “may be notably lower” than it was in 2023 as its teams work on the launch of a next-generation vehicle.
“We are focused on bringing the next generation platform to market as quickly as we can, with the plan to start production at Gigafactory Texas,” Tesla told shareholders. “This platform will revolutionize how vehicles are manufactured.”
In its most recent quarterly update, Tesla announced a net income of $7.9 billion on $25.2 billion in revenue for the fourth quarter of 2023, reflecting growth from $24.3 billion a year earlier.
Investors are now bracing for the release of Tesla’s latest quarterly update, due after markets close on April 23.
It’s widely expected that Tesla will post its worst results in seven years when the data drops.
