Tesla is going to hire over 10,000 people at Gigafactory Texas over next year, launches student worker effort

Tesla is going to hire over 10,000 employees at Gigafactory Texas over the next year. CEO Elon Musk has gotten involved in the recruiting effort, and Tesla has launched an initiative to try to hire student workers.

As Electrek reported earlier this week, Tesla is starting a hiring spree at Gigafactory Texas with many new job listings.

Throughout the process to get the deal for the project, Tesla said the factory would employ over 5,000 people.

Now Musk says that Gigafactory Texas is going to need over 10,000 people by the end of 2022. That’s quite a number for next year when the project is expected to only get started.

Tesla plans to produce Model Y, Model 3, Cybertruck, Tesla Semi, and battery cells at the factory.

By the end of next year, Tesla is expected to still be ramping up production of most of these products and therefore, the project could employ many more people once it reaches full capacity.

Tesla employed over 70,000 people as of the end of last year, and with several large projects under way, the automaker could employ over 100,000 people by the end of next year.

Chris Reilly, Tesla’s director of recruiting and workforce development, said that Tesla is working with local schools and aims to hire students out of high school and work with them to continue their education while working at the plant [via Austin Business Journal]:

The company has established relationships with Austin Community College, Huston-Tillotson University, the University of Texas and the Del Valle Independent School District, Reilly said. The car manufacturer is well known for not requiring college degrees for some of its jobs, but Reilly said part of the work they’re doing with the local colleges is “thinking about recruiting students who can graduate high school and start a career at Tesla while continuing their education.”

Reilly commented on the initiative:

“Getting to build programs with these educational institutions, with the Texas Workforce Commission, has just been so exciting. It’s really been a part of the thread of this work from site selection. We have opportunities for entry-level roles, for individuals that are coming from outside manufacturing… that have that passion, have that drive and want to come make a difference.”

It could provide great opportunities for young people who were particularly affected by the pandemic economically as students, since entry-level jobs were cut with shutdowns in the hospitality and tourism industries.

In our article from earlier this week, we listed Tesla’s recent batch of new job listings in Austin, and people can apply directly from the links.