While Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk may be concerned about the economy, job openings on the company’s website suggest that the world’s largest automaker by market value is hiring at a rapid pace for nearly every category of jobs.
Tesla listed more than 6,900 job openings on its job site this week, a nearly 50% surge since Reuters began tracking the data in mid-June.
By contrast, hiring in May 2022 peaked at more than 7,400 jobs, according to data tracked by Thinknum Alternative Data and hedge fund Snow Bull Capital.
Musk warned employees in early June that he had a “very bad” feeling about the economy and said Tesla could be laying off workers. However, he later tweeted that total headcount would increase over the next 12 months.
Taylor Ogan, director of Snow Bull Capital, said Tesla’s job ad was important because it revealed areas where Tesla wanted to grow, and “it’s a leading indicator more than anything else.”
About three-quarters of the jobs advertised on Tesla’s website are in the United States, mostly in California, Texas and Nevada, where workers and offices are located; followed by Germany and Canada, where new plants are located. On another China-focused website, Tesla lists more than 200 vacancies, and the company recently upgraded its Shanghai plant to boost production.
In the June-October period, even as Tesla ramped up monthly car production and raised prices, job advertisements for its manufacturing sector rose a relatively modest 20% to nearly 1,300 vacancies.
Roth Capital analyst Craig Irwin said that manufacturing costs are not rising, but pricing is rising, which is good news for the company’s future profit growth.
Tesla will report its latest quarterly earnings on Wednesday (19th) after the U.S. stock market closes. Before the press time, Tesla (TSLA-US) shares rose 6.46% during the session, and the share price was tentatively reported at $218.24.
