Tesla announces pay cuts, furloughs non-essential workers

San Francisco: Electric Vehicle (EV) maker Tesla has announced pay cuts for all salaried employees and will furlough hourly workers until May 4 in the US, due to coronavirus pandemic which has forced the company to shut down most of its operations.

The pay cuts and furloughs will begin on April 13, the media reported.
Employees who cannot work from home and have not been assigned critical onsite positions will be furloughed until May 4 and the pay cut is expected to last until the end of June.

Salaried employees at the vice-president level and above will have their pay cut by 30 per cent. Directors and above will have their pay cut 20 per cent. Everyone else will receive a 10 per cent pay cut, reports electrek.co.

Furloughed employees will remain employees of Tesla without pay and will receive their healthcare benefit.

Tesla said that workers outside the US will see “comparable reductions.”

The company is expected to resume vehicle production on May 4 in California — a day after a local-government shut-down order currently is scheduled to be lifted.

The EV maker temporarily closed its Fremont factory from March 23 following a shelter-in-place order put out in the San Francisco Bay Area to curb the coronavirus spread.

The company has also suspended most of its operations at its solar panel factory in Buffalo, New York.