Tesla has laid off about 200 workers, most of them in charge of tagging the data to help train the company’s AI Autopilot system. The layoffs, first reported by Bloomberg and confirmed by TechCrunch, are the latest job losses at Tesla after CEO Elon Musk told company executives the company had to downsize its workforce. about 10 percent.
The layoffs focused on Tesla’s offices in San Mateo, California, where employees worked on the Autopilot company’s driver assistance function. Many of those affected were hourly workers tasked with labeling training data. This work is essential for developing AI systems, but is often unskilled and poorly paid. In recent years, many companies have turned to cheaper sources of labor in less developed countries to gather this input.
Data labeling is essential for developing AI systems such as Autopilot
TechCrunch reports that Tesla’s San Mateo office originally had 276 employees. About 195 employees have been laid off, the publication says, including data taggers, analysts and supervisors, leaving 81 employees who are reportedly being transferred to another office.
By the end of 2021, Tesla had 99,290 employees worldwide. Earlier this month, Musk said he had a “super bad feeling” about the U.S. economy and that Tesla was “overstaffed,” prompting layoffs. Musk originally said the job loss would primarily affect salaried workers, but later reports said (and San Mateo’s layoffs show) that hourly workers are also threatened.
Tesla’s methods for downsizing its staff have sometimes been controversial. Two former employees recently filed a lawsuit against the company, alleging that Tesla violated federal law by failing to provide a 60-day notice before conducting a mass layoff at its Gigafactory facility in Nevada. In the TechCrunch report on the San Mateo layoffs, sources told the publication that most workers were fired based on performance, meaning Tesla should not be notified in advance of the layoffs.