AUSTIN, Texas — Tesla's 4.3 million-square-foot Gigafactory is about to open for business.
The intention? To ramp up production to 500,000 cars per year. Also, another something ramping up is job availability.
According to the Austin Chamber of Commerce, Tesla will be hiring for 5,000 jobs with annual wages starting at $35,000. However, that's not Elon Musk's only company in town. Neuralink, Musk's company that fuses paralyzed patients and technology, currently has 19 open positions in Austin. The entrepreneur's tunneling startup, The Boring Company, has over 20 open positions in Austin and nine in Bastrop.
Tesla is also making strides in the classroom. Alex Torrez with Del Valle Independent School District (DVISD) said the district has a few different partnerships with Tesla.
"Last year, we had our first-annual job fair with Tesla. They interviewed and signed 46 of our graduating seniors, many of them whom went on to an intensive 14-week program. Those students are the very first ones on the ground at Tesla right now," said Torrez.
Austin Community College is also on board, launching the Tesla START Manufacturing Program. The 14-week intensive training program gives students hands-on learning to start a career in the manufacturing sector at Tesla.
"Tesla has decided to go ahead and scholarship those students who don't finish in their fourth year and need a fifth year to go ahead and finish their associate's degree," said Torrez.
It's all to ensure that although Tesla is here to stay in Austin, so are the job and education opportunities for the Central Texas community.
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