By Vlad Schepkov
Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA), the world's largest EV manufacturer, is implementing a new hiring freeze and preparing for additional layoffs, an early Wednesday report by Electrek.co claims.
According to a "reliable source familiar with the matter," the company has told employees to pause new hiring for now, as well as prepare for a new round of cuts across certain teams in Q1 2023.
No details on the number of jobs affected were provided, and it’s noted Tesla "is still planning to expand in some manufacturing locations." If confirmed, the event would mark TSLA's second wave of staff cuts within just 8 months – in early June, the company's CEO Elon Musk announced a 10% workforce reduction citing worsening macro conditions and overly aggressive hiring in prior periods.
No major car maker has implemented layoffs lately, but Tesla is not the only technology company seeking to get a tighter grip on labor costs – tech giants like Meta (NASDAQ:META), Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), and Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL), among many others, have all announced hiring freezes and cuts over the past few months.
The rumor also echoes TSLA's current stock downfall – shares of the EV giant are down over 65% YTD, battered by global economic struggles, as well as controversial moves by its leader Elon Musk, most notably his Twitter acquisition and the Tesla share sales he has made to finance it.
TSLA is gaining nearly 1% in early pre-market trading after losing 8% in prior trading session.