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Electric car maker Rivian will lay off six percent of its staff, according to Reuters, or about 840 workers. If that sounds familiar, that’s because Rivian laid off six percent of its staff, or about 840 workers, in July of 2022.
Reuters, which saw an email sent by Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe, says the layoffs won’t impact Rivian’s operations at its Normal, Illinois, factory. Rivian has approximately 14,000 employees.
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The company is focusing resources on ramping up vehicle production and achieving profitability, Chief Executive Officer RJ Scaringe said in an email to employees announcing the job cuts on Wednesday. Reuters obtained a copy of the email.
[…]
“We need to focus our resources on the ramp and our path to profitability,” Scaringe said in the email, in which he apologized to employees for the need for the cuts.
A Rivian spokesperson confirmed the email had been sent, but declined further comment.
I also emailed Rivian to see confirmation of the cuts, which arrived just as quickly as they did after the other cuts; a spokesperson did not answer my questions but did forward the email Scaringe sent to employees Reuters saw. That email is:
Hello everybody,
Team changes are among the toughest decisions we make as an organization. Today I am deeply saddened to announce that we are reducing our workforce by 6%. Interested individuals will receive an invitation from their manager within 30 minutes for a 1:1 meeting on next steps. While this won’t affect production jobs in Normale, teams across the company will lose passionate collaborators, teammates who put in daily effort and gave their all to help us accomplish our mission.
To those leaving today, I am truly grateful for all of your contributions and dedication. We are committed to providing you with as much support as possible during this process.
Rivian exists to help lead the global transition away from a carbon-based economy by building category-defining vehicles that inspire both customers and the competition. To ensure long-term results, we need to focus our resources on the ramp and on our path to profitability while ensuring we have the right set of future products, services and technologies that will continue to challenge convention.
In 2022, we have taken steps to focus our product portfolio and promote a lower cost structure. Continuing to improve our operational efficiency on our path to profitability is a core focus and requires us to focus our investments and resources on the highest impact parts of our business. This includes continued growth in R1 and EDV production as well as the launch of our high volume R2 platform. The changes we are announcing today reflect this focused roadmap.
Today is a tough day. Please take the time to process this news and the changes. I’m sure you’ll have questions about how this affects your team’s future – by tomorrow, every manager will be in contact with their team to start answering your questions. We will meet on Friday for an All Hands where I will share more about these changes and our journey.
While some of our hardest work lies ahead of us, I am confident in our collective ability to achieve our ambitious goals.
Once again, I want to thank everyone for your help building Rivian and getting us to where we are today.
RJ
As far as mass firing emails from the boss go, this one isn’t terrible and gets to the point, although every time I read one, they never seem to say things like “and by the way, me and everyone else managers are taking a huge pay cut”, or “I’m also not sure why I’m still in charge after this has happened yet again”, or even “we need to cut six percent of employees but we don’t want to make layoffs, so why don’t we try voluntary buyouts first,” but then again I didn’t go to business school. Thoughts and prayers to those who lost their jobs today, who probably didn’t think there would be more layoffs so soon after the last.
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