Electric cars maker Tesla has continued to thin its working force. The company reportedly laid off 200 employees who worked on the Autopilot program earlier this week. The move came shortly after Tesla closed its office in California.
The San Mateo, California, office was focused on evaluating data from Autopilot driver-assistance features and had around 350 workers. One hundred fifty of them managed to keep their jobs after being relocated to a nearby facility. According to Bloomberg, the majority of the employees that have been let go were on hourly contracts.
The move caused Tesla stock (TSLA) to take a 3.47 percent dip on Wednesday. The TSLA is currently trading at $673.89 per share compared to $1,199.78 in January 2022.
The move doesn’t come as a surprise considering that Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk previously announced a series of layoffs amid the rising costs, surging inflation, and looming recession. In an interview with Bloomberg in early June, Musk said that 10 percent of Tesla’s salaried employees would become jobless in the next three months.
Tesla was on a hiring spree in recent years as it looked to further strengthen its position as the leader in the electric vehicles industry. It is estimated that the company has 100,000 employees globally.