Tesla cuts roughly 1,700 jobs at Berlin gigafactory, internal data shows

Internal election-committee documents for Tesla’s works council show the company’s Gigafactory Berlin-Brandenburg employed 10,703 people, down from 12,415 in the prior works-council filing used ahead of the 2024 election. The arithmetic implies a reduction of about 1,700 workers, or roughly 14 percent, a shift that local officials and labor representatives say will reverberate through the Brandenburg economy.

The figures were circulated to candidates in the works-council election and form the most specific internal headcount data available. Tesla’s official public communications have not produced a single reconciled German headcount to resolve the discrepancy between the two internal tallies. A company spokesperson said that higher estimates of cuts, including figures suggesting up to about a quarter of the local workforce, "lacks any basis" and that Tesla was "examining [the measure to let workers go] and will implement it in the Gigafactory Berlin-Brandenburg, taking into account all labour laws and co-determination requirements with the involvement of the works council." A company representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the internal committee tallies.

The decline at Giga Berlin echoes a broader restructuring at Tesla that began in 2024 when the company announced a roughly 10 percent global workforce reduction. Some reductions at the Berlin plant appear to reflect that global program, while internal documents indicate headcount continued to shrink after the initial wave. Company managers have publicly denied planned cuts; plant manager André Thierig has repeatedly said there were "no plans" for staff reductions as recently as last month, a stance at odds with the works-council figures.

Analysts and local officials point to several mechanisms that can reduce headcount without formal layoff notices, including the non-renewal of temporary contracts, hiring freezes, and not refilling voluntary departures. Those mechanisms complicate labour statistics and the legal record of workforce changes because they avoid collective dismissal procedures. The internal election-committee numbers do not specify how many departures came from each mechanism, leaving open questions about the timing and legal form of the reductions.

The economic implications are material for Brandenburg. Since opening in 2022, Giga Berlin-Brandenburg was pitched as a flagship investment for the region with employment and supply-chain spillovers. A decline from roughly 12,400 to 10,700 on the factory payroll removes a major employer from local demand and may slow related business activity in construction, logistics and services that grew around the plant. The reduction also shifts the political calculus for regional policymakers who have previously balanced economic development promises against environmental opposition; a non-binding local referendum last year rejected expansion plans, constraining growth options.

For Tesla, a smaller workforce at its largest European plant compresses capacity buffers while offering short-term cost relief. If the reductions reflect structural demand softness in electric vehicles and continued price competition, they could point to a longer period of margin pressure and slower capital absorption in Europe. The most immediate open issues are the exact number of formal layoffs versus attrition, the timeline for any further adjustments, and a formal confirmation from Tesla or the works council that aligns public accounting with the internal election-committee figures.