Tesla appears to have become a workforce juggernaut in Central Texas. A new report claims that the EV maker now employs north of 20,000 people onsite daily at the Gigafactory Texas, becoming the second largest private employer in the region.
This robust headcount is expected to triple to over 60,000 people after the Elon Musk-led brand ramps up Cybertruck production in the coming months, said Jason Shawhan, the Giga Texas director of manufacturing, at the Austin Regional Manufacturers Association conference on September 19, 2023, according to the Austin Business Journal.
Tesla appears to have added roughly 8,000 employees in the first 8-9 months of 2023 after officials previously said that the total workforce at Giga Texas had grown to 12,277 people by the end of 2022.
Thousands of employees hail from Austin, while the rest are from Houston, San Antonio, and other towns and cities of the state, as per the presentation. We rarely get official scoops from the brand, which is usually tight-lipped about its operations, so the latest revelation is a surprise.
Tesla now ranks only behind the H-E-B supermarket chain in Texas as the state’s second-largest private employer. H-E-B reportedly employed nearly 23,000 people early this year, ABJ reported.
Ford, in comparison, employs 7,250 workers at its Kansas City Assembly Plant, and 8,920 workers at the Kentucky Truck Plant, as per official data. General Motors’ Factory Zero in Michigan will have over 2,100 people after becoming fully operational.
To support the ballooning workforce, Tesla and the local authorities would need to proportionally improve the local infrastructure. Shawhan said Tesla employees don’t have enough parking space, but an upcoming garage near the plant could solve this issue.
Musk previously estimated that 250,000-500,000 Cybertrucks would be built at Giga Texas. The brand is also building battery components at the plant. The factory appears to be on track to match Giga Shanghai, Tesla’s largest facility by production capacity with 20,000 employees and the ability to crank out over a million EVs annually.