TESLA Inc is ramping up hiring in Singapore just weeks after it let go of the city-state’s country manager as part of a broader round of executive job cuts announced by CEO Elon Musk.
The US-headquartered electric carmaker is advertising for at least seven positions in Singapore on LinkedIn, including a marketing specialist to help with public relations and retail events on the island, a delivery operations specialist, a sales assistant and a project manager for a corporate social responsibility role.
Representatives from Tesla didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
The increase in headcount comes just weeks after Tesla let go of Singapore country manager Christopher Bousigues, who had been with the automaker for about a year. Bousigues took to social media to explain that his role had been “eliminated”. He didn’t give a specific reason but said his leaving was related to the staff reductions already flagged by Musk.
Musk said last month that the salaried workforce at Tesla would be trimmed by about 10% over the next three months. The Austin, Texas-headquartered company has grown to about 100,000 employees globally, hiring rapidly as it built new factories in the US and Germany.
The cuts, which have affected roles in human resources and software engineering, caught many by surprise, with several employees told they were being terminated immediately. Musk said the overall reduction in the EV maker’s headcount would only be about 3.5% considering hourly staff numbers are still expected to grow.
Tesla said over the weekend it delivered 254,695 cars worldwide in the three months to June, snapping a two-year streak of quarter-on-quarter gains. While the company doesn’t break out global sales by geography, the US and China have long been its largest markets. – Bloomberg