By Reuters | Updated: 28 July 2022
Electric-truck maker Rivian Automotive said on Wednesday it was reducing headcount by 6 percent in order to optimise costs in a tightening macroeconomic environment.
Staff in the manufacturing operations team at Normal, Illinois, will not be affected, according to an email sent by Chief Executive R.J. Scaringe to employees.
Over the next 18 months, the company will focus on enhancing R1 and EDV (electric delivery van) and speed up the development and launch of R2 and future platforms.
The company, Scaringe wrote in the email, is financially well positioned, “but to fully realize our potential, our strategy must support our sustainable growth as we ramp towards profitability.”
Rivian had over 10,000 employees globally, as of December 31, 2021, according to the company’s filing. The company had $16 billion (roughly Rs. 1,27,662 crore) in cash at the end of the first quarter.
Last month, Tesla cancelled three online recruitment events for China scheduled this month, a development that took place after chief executive Elon Musk threatened job cuts at the electric car maker, saying it was “overstaffed” in some areas.
However, Musk had not commented specifically on staffing in China, which made more than half of the vehicles for the automaker globally and contributed a quarter of its revenue in 2021. The company cancelled the three events for positions in sales, R&D and its supply chain originally scheduled for June 16, 23 and 30, notifications on messaging app WeChat had announced at the time, without stating a reason. Musk had a “super bad feeling” about the economy, he said in an email last month.
In another email to employees, Musk had said Tesla would reduce salaried headcount by a tenth, as it had become “overstaffed in many areas”, but added that hourly headcount would increase. Production at Tesla’s Shanghai plant was badly hit after the Chinese commercial hub began a two-month COVID-19 lockdown late in March.
