Tesla laid off nearly 200 employees on its self-driving team.
On June 28, local time, according to Bloomberg reported that Tesla Inc. closed an office in San Mateo, California, USA, causing its autonomous driving team to lay off hundreds of employees. This is One of the company's largest known layoffs.
Bloomberg quoted people familiar with the matter as saying that about 200 workers at were laid off. Many employees are data labeling experts, including both salaried and contract workers. Affected employees of were notified on the 28th, and a team in the San Mateo office is responsible for evaluating customer vehicle data related to autonomous driving assistance functions and performing so-called data tagging.
In previous job postings, Tesla said labeled data is a "key ingredient in training powerful deep neural networks that help self-driving Tesla vehicles ." Such as Buffalo, New York and St. Matt O's staff spent hours labeling images of cars and the environments they drive in, including street signs and lanes.
Technology media TechCrunch pointed out that these layoffs target personnel who were once considered critical to the company's autonomous driving advanced driver assistance system. Meanwhile, more noteworthy is CEO Elon Musk's efforts to further develop self-driving capabilities through the optional $12,000 FSD system.
TechCrunch stated that the San Mateo office has 276 employees. After laying off 195 employees at all levels, the team has only 81 employees left, and it is reported that these employees will be placed in another office. Citing data from Glassdoor,
TechCrunch pointed out that jobs such as Tesla's data annotation experts or data analysts are paid less in Buffalo than in San Mateo. It's unclear whether Tesla is moving employees to the New York office to reduce costs or as a strategy to qualify for New York State 's many employment incentives, such as New York Youth Employment Program tax credits or employment for people with disabilities. credit.
The layoffs are part of an effort to reduce its salaried workforce as Tesla pulls back from a hiring spree in recent years, Bloomberg reported. The company is now headquartered in Austin, Texas, and has grown to approximately 100,000 employees worldwide with the establishment of new factories in Austin and Berlin.
Earlier this month, Musk said he had a "super bad feeling" about the current economic situation and said Tesla would need to cut about 10% of its workforce and "pause all hiring activities globally." .
Musk recently explained the layoffs at the Qatar Economic Forum, saying that the layoffs only apply to fixed-salary workers, and hourly workers are not affected by the layoffs. Tesla’s total employee count will be reduced by approximately 3.5%, a move that will be completed within the next three months. Musk called it a "not too big" change.
As of the close of trading on June 28, local time, Tesla fell 5% to US$697.99 per share.
Source: The Paper
Original title: Tesla was exposed that about 200 people in the U.S. autonomous driving team were laid off, involving data annotation positions
