Following recent layoffs, Tesla has secretly removed thousands of available employment posts from its website, indicating a hiring freeze in North America. This follows a turbulent month for the electric vehicle manufacturer, which at the end of the previous year employed about 140,000 workers.
As of Wednesday, Tesla’s US careers page had just three open roles, all related to its manufacturing development program. With this program, you can train for seven weeks and then potentially go into a full-time production career. A week ago, Tesla’s website featured over 3,400 positions across North America; this is a far cry from that.
More extensive job listings at Tesla, such as those on LinkedIn, paint a similar image. These days, the majority of jobs that are listed are in China, with a small number also in Europe and the Dominican Republic. There is just one US-based position listed on LinkedIn, which is also part of the development program.
The recent Department of Justice investigation into possible securities fraud pertaining to Tesla’s boasts of Full Self-Driving and Autopilot technology occurs at the same time as this hiring freeze. The stock price of the corporation has also declined, falling by almost 30% so far this year.
Since the original layoffs that were revealed in April, Tesla has now drastically lowered the number of job posts for the second time. Elon Musk, the CEO, used the necessity for increased efficiency and cost control in the face of the company’s explosive growth to defend the layoffs. Although Musk first apologized for the job losses in his emails, subsequent reports indicate that he took a more assertive stance and pushed for tougher headcount reductions.
