While Rivian has been able to ramp production through 2022 after a slow start, the fledgling automaker is still losing money hand over fist. In an effort to help reduce costs and keep it competitive, CEO RJ Scaringe informed workers this morning of upcoming job cuts.
According to an internal email obtained by Reuters, Scaringe said 6% of Rivian’s workforce will lose their jobs. As of their most recent update Rivian has about 14,000 employees, so the layoffs will amount to about 840 workers. The CEO apologized for having to make this difficult decision, but said it was necessary to ensure they can continue to ramp production and eventually become profitable. “We must focus our resources on ramp and our path to profitability,” Scaringe said.
As such the layoffs will not affect manufacturing positions at their plant in Normal, Illinois. Rivian declined to officially comment on the layoffs, but did confirm the authenticity of the email to Reuters.
Rivian’s path to profitability could be a long one. The automaker will announce its Q4 2022 and full year earnings on February 28, but in Q3 it posted a massive $1.7 billion net loss, leaving it with $13.8 billion in cash on hand to continue funding operations, which it said should last them through 2025.
This isn’t the first sign that Rivian has been attempting to cut down on its expenses. In December they announced they were abandoning plans to jointly build electric delivery vans in Europe with Mercedes Benz, just three months after first announcing the deal.
This also isn’t the first time Rivian has been forced to cut its workforce. Last July about 5%, or about 700 jobs were eliminated.
