It appears Tesla will avoid a massive $ 41.2 million fine from New York State. The electric car manufacturer and energy storage company has reached the number of employees agreed by the two companies years ago, but this will not be finalized until the end of the year.
New York State Bureau of Labor Statistics job numbers show Tesla currently has 1,536 full-time employees and 21 part-time positions. Those numbers were accurate as of Nov. 10 and would put Tesla over the required number of jobs it needed to complete in order to avoid the massive fine. Tesla needs 1,460 employees to avoid the fine, according to Buffalo News.
Tesla under gun to create jobs at Gigafactory 2 in Buffalo, NY when the countdown begins
The employment numbers are unofficial, according to state officials, who also added that the penalty will be imposed based on the number of jobs Tesla held at the Buffalo Gigafactory on Dec. 31. Tesla will avoid the penalty unless a major round of year-end layoffs is required that would bring the company back below the required employment threshold.
Tesla and the state agreed on employment numbers as part of the Buffalo Billion business development initiative, which requires a certain number of jobs in the city. There are no requirements for salary or type of job; Tesla just needs to prove that it employs at least 1,460 people at the plant.
In the Gigafactory New York, or Gigafactory 2, as it used to be called, Tesla builds components for its superchargers as well as inverters for its battery products. Recently, Tesla hired a significant number of employees to work on its autonomous and fully self-driving programs. Some of the positions are not directly related to software development or neural network applications. Many are for data annotation that do not require a college degree. Tesla and SolarCity, a solar panel company that the automaker acquired in 2016, also had agreements with New York that canceled part of the deal that required the creation of 1,440 jobs at local suppliers and service providers.
The state has also granted a number of extensions to allow Tesla to meet its work demands, but these were related to the COVID-19 pandemic that slipped job opportunities across the country when the industry suddenly stalled. The first was in 2020 and the other in April 2021. The latter extension gave Tesla time to meet its contractual obligations until the end of the year.
Tesla and New York State still have a 10-year job commitment for the factory, which drives the job creation schedule under the agreement.
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