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Tesla will slash salaried employee pay, and will furlough hourly workers until May 4

.Detective.

.Detective.

Member
Oct 27, 2017
9,679
Tesla will cut pay for all of its employees and will furlough all hourly workers until May 4, when it intends to resume production of electric cars, according to an internal e-mail that multiple employees shared with CNBC. The pay reductions are expected to be in place until the end of the second quarter.

Health orders implemented to curb the spread of COVID-19 have forced the electric vehicle maker to wind down new vehicle production at its main car plant in Fremont, California.

The cuts follow Tesla's first-quarter vehicle production and deliveries report, which pleased investors — the company delivered approximately 88,400 vehicles and produced 103,000 in Q1. The company has yet to withdraw guidance it gave investors for 2020, saying it should "comfortably exceed" 500,000 vehicle deliveries for the year.

Last week, Tesla informed staffing agencies that it would be ceasing all contract work until further notice. Hundreds of temps were dismissed from their Tesla gigs as a result.
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Details from the HR letter:

Pay will be temporarily reduced for salaried employees.

For U.S. employees, these reductions are 30% for Vice Presidents and above, 20% for Directors and above, and 10% for everyone else.

For non-U.S. employees, there will also be comparable reductions, of which the specifics will be communicated by the local leadership team in accordance with local laws and works-councils.

These reductions are expected to be in place until the end of Q2

Employees who cannot work at home and have not been assigned to critical work onsite will be furloughed.

Under furlough, you remain an employee of Tesla (without pay) and retain your healthcare benefits. You will not report to work until the furlough ends and you are directed to return by management, which we expect to be May 4.
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www.cnbc.com

Tesla will slash employee pay and furlough employees

Tesla will cut pay for all of its salaried employees until the second quarter of 2020, and furlough hourly workers until May 4, when it intends to resume production of electric cars, according to an internal e-mail that employees shared with CNBC.
www.cnbc.com www.cnbc.com
 
Commedieu

Commedieu

Banned
Nov 11, 2017
15,025
For U.S. employees, these reductions are 30% for Vice Presidents and above, 20% for Directors and above, and 10% for everyone else.

well at least corporate is getting hit too.


but this is lame considering how wealthy everyone involved is.
 

T0MBraider

Banned
Mar 4, 2020
55
Are they allowed to do that? Most countries you need to agree to a drop in pay.

Any company dropping pay should also drop hours, not change someone's hourly rate
 
GYODX

GYODX

Member
Oct 27, 2017
7,244
Working for Elon Musk sounds really fucking shitty.

I know so many mechanical engineering students who dream of working at SpaceX/Telsa and I'm just like, why do you want to do that to yourself? Shit pay, shit hours. You could do so much better.
 
The_Inquisitor

The_Inquisitor

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,307
Texas
Guys this is happening in a lot of industries. My company fired or furloughed 85% of employees. I was one of few to survive with a paycut. I know people love to dunk on Musk but this aint it.
 
j_rocca42

j_rocca42

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,133
PNW
This is happening all over the place. Not just at Tesla. Still sucks for the employees nonetheless.
 
RastaMentality

RastaMentality

Member
Oct 25, 2017
13,129
The story is all of the factory workers with lesser wages being furloughed. No pay for the rest of the quarter.
 
sfedai0

sfedai0

Member
Oct 27, 2017
9,957
Im surprised it they lasted this long. Most companies, albeit smaller, have already furloughed and layed off a large portion of their staff.
 

Ashhong

Member
Oct 26, 2017
16,619
I wish my job was doing something similar to it's salaried employees that are "working from home" barely doing anything instead of laying off people in the operations department that have to still come into the office to work.
 
Kendrid

Kendrid

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,129
Chicago, IL
I work for a billion dollar company and they did this a few weeks ago. Tesla cut execs pay more than we did. This is the new norm until people are back to work and buying stuff. Our pay cuts are until after summer.
 
Ryno23

Ryno23

Banned
Dec 13, 2017
1,097
GYODX said:
Working for Elon Musk sounds really fucking shitty.

I know so many mechanical engineering students who dream of working at SpaceX/Telsa and I'm just like, why do you want to do that to yourself? Shit pay, shit hours. You could do so much better.
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I imagine working for a company that accomplishes things like that would be why one would "dream"

RastaMentality said:
The story is all of the factory workers with lesser wages being furloughed. No pay for the rest of the quarter.
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If anything the hourly workers come out best from this its the salaried workers getting hit. They keep their jobs and health insurance benefits, get unemployment and return to work May 4. Wouldn't being furloughed be better in this situation so they can get the unemployment unless I'm missing something here?
Employees who cannot work at home and have not been assigned to critical work onsite will be furloughed.

  • Under furlough, you remain an employee of Tesla (without pay) and retain your healthcare benefits. You will not report to work until the furlough ends and you are directed to return by management, which we expect to be May 4.
  • A furlough notice will be emailed to you in the coming days with additional instructions on how to apply for unemployment benefits through your state agency.
  • For the vast majority of furloughed employees, unemployment benefits will be roughly equivalent to normal take home pay.
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ajl19

Member
Oct 28, 2017
66
Ryno23 said:
If anything the hourly workers come out best from this its the salaried workers getting hit. They keep their jobs and health insurance benefits, get unemployment and return to work May 4. Wouldn't being furloughed be better in this situation so they can get the unemployment unless I'm missing something here?
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The salaried employees (mostly engineering and operations) probably still make a shitload more than they would get from UI, even with the paycut.
 

Deleted member 31817

Nov 7, 2017
30,876
Man sure would be nice if Musk used his own wealth as a fucking billionaire to pay his employees during a pandemic
 
L Thammy

L Thammy

Spacenoid
Member
Oct 25, 2017
50,045
whats interesting about tesla is that if you remove everything they do that arent really good theyve only done good things. i don't think a lot of companies can say that
 
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Septimus Prime

Septimus Prime

EA
Verified
Oct 25, 2017
8,500
ajl19 said:
The salaried employees (mostly engineering and operations) probably still make a shitload more than they would get from UI, even with the paycut.
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Yeah. Unemployment is California caps at like $200/day. Given about 250 business days per year, that extrapolates out to an "annual salary" of $50k (minus what they would have to pay for their own insurance), which is very low for the SF Bay Area.
 
Burai

Burai

Member
Oct 27, 2017
2,086
Public: Pay a living wage! Pay more taxes!

Corporation: We can't! We're wealth creators! We need that money to safeguard everyone's livelihoods should the worst happen!

*LITERALLY ONE SECOND AFTER THE WORST HAPPENS*

Corporation: Right, who's for pay cuts and layoffs?
 
Shirosaki

Shirosaki

Prophet of Truth
Avenger
Oct 27, 2017
831
Darkmaigle said:
They didn't take away bonuses from executives so the reduced pay is Jack shit
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You know to hit bonuses you have to reach sales goals right? Do you really think they're going to hit the 500k this year that they're still sticking to? They're saving face currently to not lose out on investors.

I don't get the people ragging on Tesla for this like they're some outlier. A vast amount of multi billion dollar companies are doing the same or worse.

For whoever that said Elon should take the hit with his money. It's in stocks primarily. Yeah, let him sell off a ton of stock and devalue the company which would cost more to the lasting of the company.

I really don't think a lot of people posting understand economics or how corporations work. They did a scaled penalty to higher management which is better than most places. If you made 200k at a VP you're making 140k. If you were making 100k as non manager you're making 90k. Looks to me everyone is taking a hit there.
 

TKM

Member
Oct 28, 2017
540
Terrible news, the auto industry is getting hit hard. Honda and Nissan have also announced temporary layoffs in the U.S. I expect layoffs to hit every manufacturer before long. :(
 
Darkmaigle

Darkmaigle

Member
Oct 25, 2017
10,525
Shirosaki said:
You know to hit bonuses you have to reach sales goals right? Do you really think they're going to hit the 500k this year that they're still sticking to? They're saving face currently to not lose out on investors.

I don't get the people ragging on Tesla for this like they're some outlier. A vast amount of multi billion dollar companies are doing the same or worse.

For whoever that said Elon should take the hit with his money. It's in stocks primarily. Yeah, let him sell off a ton of stock and devalue the company which would cost more to the lasting of the company.

I really don't think a lot of people posting understand economics or how corporations work. They did a scaled penalty to higher management which is better than most places. If you made 200k at a VP you're making 140k. If you were making 100k as non manager you're making 90k. Looks to me everyone is taking a hit there.
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Executive bonuses aren't just based on sales.
I do agree that doing the scaled hit is the right move and I'm not trying to dog pile Tesla so I shoulda softened my messaging up.
 
JMeth

JMeth

Banned
Oct 29, 2017
251
Illinois
Toyota and other auto companies did this weeks ago, I've been furloughed from Toyota now since the 20th of March.
 
GYODX

GYODX

Member
Oct 27, 2017
7,244
Polymerization said:
You literally have no idea what you're talking about my guy
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Long hours, poor work-life balance, a toxic work environment, and lackluster pay (relative to what you could be getting elsewhere as an engineer) are well-known features of working at Tesla and SpaceX if you hang around engineering circles.

Here are some engineers talking about what it's like to work at SpaceX if you care to read it.

Anecdotally, several of my colleagues at work used to work at SpaceX. They're getting paid better relative to cost of living, never have to work more than 40 hours a week, and still get to engineer cool space shit, albeit not rockets.
 
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Mesoian

Mesoian

▲ Legend ▲
Member
Oct 28, 2017
26,524
Expect this to be the national situation if the business closing are extended again through May.

If it goes through June, 1/4th of the country is going to get laid off.
 
hateradio

hateradio

Member
Oct 28, 2017
8,755
welcome, nowhere
Anyone on the tech side is going to ditch Tesla for other companies in the area unless those companies do the same. (Doubt FB, Google, and Apple will do this, but we shall see.)
 
808s & Villainy

808s & Villainy

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
42,700
GYODX said:
Anecdotally, several of my colleagues at work used to work at SpaceX. They're getting paid better relative to cost of living, never have to work more than 40 hours a week, and still get to engineer cool space shit, albeit not rockets.
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I'm a little skeptical of engineers who never have to work more than 40 hrs/week. And in aerospace?
 
whytemyke

whytemyke

The Fallen
Oct 28, 2017
3,786
the real kicker will be once Elon decides he doesn't need 20% of the staff to accomplish 100% of the work and just cans them outright.
 
GYODX

GYODX

Member
Oct 27, 2017
7,244
808s & Villainy said:
I'm a little skeptical of engineers who never have to work more than 40 hrs/week. And in aerospace?
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Maybe "never" was too strong a word. I'm sure they put in more than that during crunch time. So never more than 40 hours for the vast majority of their time, save for certain points during the year. The point is that the culture is such that you're actively encouraged to maintain a work-life balance. You're not expected to put your work above all else. Whereas at SpaceX, even the engineers who like working there will attest to work-life balance being consistently bad.

For reference, my company's the one sending a rotorcraft to Titan and are also doing the asteroid redirect mission. So, not rockets, but a decent second place in terms of the coolness factor.

Also, SpaceX does not offer 401(k) matching. That alone would be a deal-breaker to me.
 
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sfedai0

sfedai0

Member
Oct 27, 2017
9,957
Ryno23 said:
Don't they give all employees company stock though? That's worth it's weight in gold, you litteraly can't buy it
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Most private companies opt for that instead of offering 401K. Its a win win for both sides if the company is well run and has aspirations to go public. I would take stock compensation all day.
 
thefit

thefit

Member
Oct 25, 2017
6,243
SpaceX is teetering on bankruptcy. Musk is good at hype and that often blinds people to look at how bad his businesses are actually doing.
 
Ryno23

Ryno23

Banned
Dec 13, 2017
1,097
thefit said:
SpaceX is teetering on bankruptcy. Musk is good at hype and that often blinds people to look at how bad his businesses are actually doing.
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Source? Because I'm calling BS. They completely own the launch market. Have zero problems raising capital at a moments notice, and once Starlink is online could easily become one of the most valuable companies is history.
 
kiguel182

kiguel182

Member
Oct 31, 2017
9,441
At least they aren't firing anyone.

The amount of lay-offs I've been hearing about are crazy.
 
Trup1aya

Trup1aya

Literally a train safety expert
Member
Oct 25, 2017
21,363
This is going to be a best case scenario for a lot of companies. I'm glad its progressive as you go up the latter. I hate it for the hourly workers. Hopefully they all had some income insurance. I bet a union would have recommended or provided that.

A buddy of mine (different company) took a 20% salary reduction, isn't an essential employee, and can't work from home.

So he's getting 80% of his pay to stay at home for a few weeks. He says it's an agreeable situation amongst he and his colleagues.
 
TarpitCarnivore

TarpitCarnivore

Member
Oct 25, 2017
20,229
hateradio said:
Anyone on the tech side is going to ditch Tesla for other companies in the area unless those companies do the same. (Doubt FB, Google, and Apple will do this, but we shall see.)
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FB, Google, and Apple all have software business that can run through all this. They'll have cuts or layoffs, but in departments deemed 'non essential' or reductions in things like sales & marketing. But those tend to be first to go departments anyway in sales heavy companies.

Tesla lives and dies based on car sales.
 
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