Elon Musk looks to lead Twitter after mass layoffs in November, but its flagship Tesla has also seen job openings double since mid-June, coupled with job turnovers at Germany’s newest gigafactory. , and face the plight of workforces around the world.
When the Gigafactory opened in Berlin in March, he set a goal of producing 5,000 vehicles a week by the end of the year. However, it is far from reaching its goal after facing major employment problems. It goes hand in hand with the failure of ambitious production goals. In 2022, Musk told German media that in 2022 he plans to build 500,000 Teslas in Berlin.
The company is also losing experienced staff, according to former and current Gigafactory employees. They say current employees are leaving their jobs because of low and unequal pay and inexperienced managers in Germany’s highly competitive manufacturing sector.Tesla asked for comment on WIRED. did not respond to
A current employee described the Berlin Gigafactory as a “complete mess” and asked to remain anonymous for fear of losing his job. “Some people stay sick longer than they actually work. Some people are out of work for three weeks in six months. They denounce poor working conditions. The exits involve temporary staff and permanent employees who have been there for over a year, hired before the gigafactory opened, they claim.
Worldwide, Tesla reached a record number of vacancies for the year in November, listing almost 7,500 jobs. This is double the postings in mid-June, according to data from its own website. Though most of these vacancies were in the US, Germany was in second place, with 386 vacancies advertised at the Berlin plant on November 11, including one for a “high-volume recruiter.”
Local labor specialists say it is unlikely Tesla will be able to find more qualified workers to fill the gap, because it is seen as an unattractive employer in the heavily unionized German auto sector, and it competes with rival carmaker Volkswagen for skilled workers in the Berlin area. The Job Centre in nearby Frankfurt (Oder) said on October 4 that Tesla had hired 1,000 previously unemployed workers already, calling it “the biggest recruitment project since reunification,” and according to some reports, Tesla is already the largest private employer in Brandenburg.
