SHANGHAI, June 9 (Reuters) – Tesla continued with an online job event in China on Thursday, adding two dozen new job postings in the country, a week after Elon Musk threatened job cuts at the electric car maker and said that the company is “super-staff” in some areas.
Tesla (TSLA.O) plans to hold the event online from 19:00 Shanghai time (1100 GMT) and will hire staff for “smart manufacturing” roles, according to an online publication.
Tesla has 224 current jobs in China for managers and engineers in this category, according to a separate publication in its WeChat account, 24 of which were published recently on June 9.
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Among the announced positions are managers and engineers to oversee the operation of its 6,000-ton injection molding machines, known as Giga Press, one of the largest in the world.
Tesla regularly hosts similar online recruitment events in China, most recently in May for summer interns.
Tesla’s revenue in China more than doubled in 2021 from a year ago, contributing a quarter of the US carmaker’s total revenue.
The plant in Shanghai, which produces Model 3 and Model Y for domestic sales and exports, produced more than half of the cars it produced last year, and Tesla also plans to expand the factory. Read more
However, plant production was severely affected by the two-month blockade of COVID-19 in Shanghai, which halted work for 22 days and later struggled to return to full production. Previously, Tesla planned to increase production at the plant to 22,000 cars a week by mid-May.
Musk, the chief executive, said in an email seen by Reuters last week that he had a “super bad feeling” about the economy and needed to cut 10 percent of the carmaker’s staff. The email was titled “Pause all rentals around the world.” Read more
In another email to employees on Friday, Musk said Tesla would reduce the number of employees by 10% as it became “overstaffed in many areas”, but added that “the hourly number of employees will increase”.
However, he withdrew from the emails on Saturday, saying the total number of employees would increase over the next 12 months and the number of employees should change slightly. Read more
Musk did not specifically comment on personnel in China.
Musk last month compared American workers to those in China, saying American workers tended to avoid going to work until Chinese workers left the factories.
“They will burn oil at 3 am,” he told a conference of Chinese workers.
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Report by Jan Yan and Brenda Go; Edited by Stephen Coates
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