Tesla boss Musk is reacting to the slump in the electric car market with radical staff cuts. The German location in Grünheide is hit hard.
Grünheide – Falling production figures, faltering sales, subdued demand: things aren’t going well for Tesla right now. Now CEO Elon Musk has sworn the workforce for tough times - and announced a wave of layoffs. More than ten percent of employees worldwide are expected to lose their jobs.
Tesla boss Elon Musk is cutting one in ten jobs worldwide
This emerges from an internal email that Musk sent to employees and which is available to
Handelsblatt
. After a thorough review of costs and productivity, the company decided to reduce the number of jobs by more than ten percent, it said. “There is nothing I hate more, but it has to be done,” Musk continued. “This will make us lean, innovative and hungry for the next phase of growth.”
According to its own information, Tesla employed a good 140,000 people worldwide at the end of last year. There are now 14,000 jobs available. The US portal
Electrek
, which specializes in news about electromobility , was the first to report on it, but spoke of up to 28,000 people who could lose their jobs.
In the Gigafactory in Grünheide, one in four jobs will be lost
The German location in Grünheide is apparently particularly affected by job losses. As the
Handelsblatt
reports, citing two internal sources, around 3,000 of the 12,500 employees at the Gigafactory Berlin-Brandenburg are expected to lose their jobs. That would be every fourth place. The first affected people are said to have already been informed.
Dirk Schulze, IG Metall district manager Berlin-Brandenburg-Saxony, said when asked: “So far there are a lot of rumors and a declaration of intent from the company headquarters that over ten percent of the workforce is to be reduced - globally. Even the works council has no information about what this means for Grünheide.” Last year, a sticker campaign caused a scandal between the factory management in Grünheide and the union.
There have been rumors of layoffs at Tesla for a long time
The layoffs at Tesla had been announced - and not just because of the slump in the market for electric cars. In the meantime, the US company had even been replaced by its Chinese competitor BYD as the largest electric car manufacturer in the world. Last month, Tesla already reduced production at the Gigafactory Shanghai, and according to
Business Insider,
shifts are also said to have been shortened at the factory in Austin, Texas, where the Cybertruck is built.
In Grünheide, several departments canceled internal celebrations at the end of last week. Employees are also said to have been informed that shifts at crucial points in production would be shortened or canceled.
(mt)