Tesla: Elon Musk is cutting jobs for fear of recession

Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk announced on Tuesday at the Qatar Economic Forum organized by Bloomberg News Agency that the dismantling will be completed in the next three months. It’s about ten percent of the salaried employees, which is 3.5 percent of the total workforce – so there’s not much.

3000 damaged

At the end of 2021, the American group employed about 100,000 people worldwide, so there will be more than 3,000 affected. The Tesla chief had internally reported the plans at the beginning of June. In an email available to Reuters news agency, he justified this with a “very bad feeling” about economic development. Now, he said, a recession is possible in the near future. “It’s not certain, but it seems more likely.” The leading electric car company in the United States wanted to maintain the record level of sales at the beginning of the year with about 310,000 cars in the second quarter. However, recent shutdowns in China have further slowed production at the Shanghai plant.

What the dismantling plans mean for the German Tesla plant at Grünheide in Brandenburg has remained open. Jobs are created there. A company spokesperson was initially unavailable. At the end of the week, trade union IG Metall noted that Grünheide’s workforce was increasingly dissatisfied with extremely low and unequal wages. This is why hiring new employees is not progressing as quickly as planned. “Tesla wants to have about 12,000 employees on board by the end of the year. To achieve this goal, management will have to increase their salaries soon,” said Birgit Dietz, head of the IG Metall district in Berlin-Brandenburg. Saxon.

low wages

According to the union, the pay is up to 20 percent lower than standard wages at competing automakers in the region. Meanwhile, Tesla’s factory management has begun offering higher salaries to new hires than previous hires.

The job cuts that have already begun in the US are causing problems. Tesla is on trial in Texas on suspicion of mass layoffs without warning. Two former workers said they were summarily fired at the giant Sparks plant in June, according to the lawsuit filed on Monday. According to this, Tesla has put more than 500 employees on the road this month.

Layoffs seek class action lawsuits

According to US federal labor law, a 60-day notice period is required for such mass layoffs. “Tesla has only notified employees that their termination will be effective immediately,” the lawsuit reads. The dismissed employees are pursuing a class action lawsuit. Former employees claim 60 days of wages and benefits.

A statement from Tesla was not initially available. Musk himself was dismissive on Tuesday. “Obviously anything related to Tesla gets a lot of clicks, whether it’s trivial or important,” he explained during the Qatar Economic Forum. “I would put the lawsuit you’re referring to in the ‘trivial’ category.”