Tesla’s 2,500-acre manufacturing hub in Austin, Texas, tripled its workforce last year, according to the company’s annual compliance report filed with county officials. Bloomberg first reported the news.
Tesla increased Austin’s workforce from just 3,523 temporary and full-time employees in 2021 to 12,277 by the end of 2022, according to a report filed with the Travis County Economic Development Program. A full-time employee earning at least $47,147. Outside of Tesla’s factories, the average salary of an Austin worker is $68,060, according to ZipRecruiter data.
TechCrunch was unable to obtain a copy of the report, so it’s unclear if all of these employees are full-time. If so, Tesla is hiring far more full-time employees than contracts. Under an agreement between Tesla and Travis County, the company is obliged to create 5,001 new full-time jobs over the next four years.
The deal says Tesla must invest about $1.1 billion in the county over the next five years. Tesla’s compliance report shows the automaker invested his $5.81 billion in Gigafactory Texas last year. It officially kicked off a year ago with the “Cyber Rodeo” event. In January, Tesla informed regulators of its plans to invest another $770 million in factory expansions to include a battery cell test site and a cathode and drive unit manufacturing site. That investment will create more jobs.
Tesla’s choice to move its headquarters to Texas and build its Gigafactory there is helping the state lead the nation in job growth. The automaker is building a Model Y crossover there and plans to build a Cybertruck in Texas as well. GigaHe says Texas will also be a model for sustainable manufacturing, CEO Elon Musk said. Last year, Tesla completed the first phase of its plan to become the “world’s largest rooftop solar installation,” according to a Bloomberg report. Tesla has begun the second phase of installation, and there are already reports that the rooftop can be seen from space. The goal is to generate 27 megawatts of electricity.
Musk also promised to transform the site into an “ecological paradise” with boardwalks and hiking/biking trails open to the public. Not much has been updated in that regard, and locals fear the site is actually an environmental nightmare leading to noise and water pollution.East of Austin, on State Route 130 and Harold Located at the intersection of Green Road, the site is on the Colorado River and could cause a climate catastrophe if the river floods.
The Tesla Gigafactory site has also historically been home to low-income households, with a large Spanish-speaking population. It is not clear whether factory jobs reflect the demographic population of the communities in which they exist.
