Tesla goes ahead with China hiring event after Musk job warning

SHANGHAI, June 9 (Reuters) – Tesla was proceeding with an online hiring event in China on Thursday and added two dozen new job postings for the country, a week after Elon Musk threatened job cuts at the electric car maker and said the company was “overstaffed” in some areas.

Tesla (TSLA.O) plans to hold the event online starting from 7 p.m. Shanghai time (1100 GMT) and will recruit staff for “smart manufacturing” roles, according to an online post.

Tesla has 224 current openings in China for managers and engineers under that category, according to a separate post on its WeChat account, 24 of which were newly posted on June 9.

Among the posted positions are managers and engineers to supervise the operation of its 6,000-ton die casting machines known as Giga Press, one of the world’s biggest.

Tesla regularly holds such hiring events online in China, with the latest one held in May for summer interns.

Tesla’s China revenue more than doubled in 2021 from a year ago, contributing to a quarter of the total income for the U.S. automaker.

The Shanghai plant, which manufactures Model 3 and Model Ys for domestic sale and export, produced more than half of the cars it made last year and Tesla is also planning to expand the factory. read more

However, output at the plant was badly hit by Shanghai’s two-month COVID-19 lockdown that saw it halt work for 22 days and later struggle to return to full production. Prior to this, Tesla had planned to ramp up 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% of staff at the electric car maker. The email was titled “pause all hiring worldwide”. read more

In another email to employees on Friday, Musk said Tesla would reduce salaried headcount by 10%, as it has become “overstaffed in many areas” but added that “hourly headcount will increase”.

However on Saturday he backed away from the emails, saying total headcount would increase over the next 12 months and the number of salaried staff should be little changed. read more

Musk had not commented specifically on staffing in China.

Musk last month compared U.S. workers to those in China, saying American workers tended to try to avoid going to work whereas Chinese workers would not leave the factories.

“They will be burning the 3 a.m. oil,” he said at a conference of Chinese workers.

Reporting by Zhang Yan and Brenda Goh; Editing by Stephen Coates

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