Tesla's Gigafactory in Shanghai Photo: Xie Jun/GT

US electric carmaker Tesla Inc is scrambling to start operations at its Gigafactory in Shanghai to meet ambitious production targets amid rising pressure, as it continues to ratchet up recruitment of talent.

On Saturday, Tesla held the third round of recruitment at the Shanghai Pudong job market with a focus on technical staff for Gigafactory 3, an employee at the event confirmed to the Global Times on Sunday. 

A security guard at the Shanghai Pudong job market said that the Tesla recruitment fair attracted "hundreds of applicants." 

Tesla held the fair to recruit technical staff such as production supervisors, installation and repair technicians, quality inspectors and others for the new Shanghai plant. 

News portal thepaper.cn said about 500 applicants attended the fair on Saturday. Some came from Shanghai itself and surrounding regions, but there were also candidates who traveled from more distant points such as Fuzhou, East China's Fujian Province, according to the report. 

Tesla didn't reply to an interview request from the Global Times as to the specific conditions of the hiring. But Tesla CEO Elon Musk has said that the company aims to produce as many as 2,000 cars a week by the end of 2019. 

Although the company saw record sales in the second quarter of 2019 at 95,200 units, boosted by sales of its most affordable vehicle, Tesla is still running far behind meeting its target to deliver at least 360,000 cars and produce a "significantly higher" number of units this year.

"Tesla is facing a great deal of pressure in both sales and production, so it has to get [the Shanghai factory] up and running soon, otherwise its share price will take a further hit," Feng Shiming, executive director of Menutor Consulting Shanghai, told the Global Times on Sunday.

However, the carmaker may see more challenges down the road in China, as more consumers start to notice various problems with the cars, ranging from loose screws to catching fire. "Tesla's reputation has become so bad" that many will likely choose other brands, Feng said.

Also, although Tesla's status as a pioneer in the NEV sector has attracted many Chinese auto workers, the wages offered by Tesla for those posts have fallen short of expectations. A Weibo user named AichilumiantiaoMT complained that the pay being offered by Tesla is "not as good as expected."

"Maybe because it is Tesla, everybody has high expectations for its pay," the user said. 

The person also disclosed that the Tesla Gigafactory 3 offers monthly pay of about 9,000 yuan ($1,305.77) for a production supervisor. The wage does not include accommodation, which is usually the case with other companies, according to insiders. 

The average monthly salary of 8,765 yuan for urban jobs in Shanghai in 2018, according to data from the Shanghai Municipal Human Resources and Social Security Bureau.
Newspaper headline: Tesla recruits workers in China