03/15/2024

News

Apple Supplier Jabil To Close Silicon Valley Site, Impacting Nearly 300 Employees

Jabil Inc., a manufacturer for tech giants like Apple Inc., is closing one of its Silicon Valley sites and laying off or transferring hundreds of local employees as business slows. The St. Petersburg, Florida-based electronics manufacturer and contractor is closing its Silver Creek facility in San Jose, affecting 298 total employees, the company confirmed to […]

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Tesla to cut 9 percent of workforce in ‘difficult, but necessary’ reorganization

Tesla plans to cut 9 percent of its workforce, Electrek reported on Tuesday, in what CEO Elon Musk called a “difficult, but necessary reorg” that will impact salaried employees but spare the production line at its Fremont factory. The Palo Alto-based car maker began layoffs on Monday, Electrek said, citing sources familiar with the matter. […]

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San Jose mortgage originations plummet as down payments soar again

San Jose’s median down payment, the highest in the nation, is now up to $268,000, higher even than San Francisco.

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Tesla hopes to fix Model 3 bottlenecks with its fourth acquisition

Luxury electric carmaker Tesla this week acquired a small, Minnesota-based factory automation company, in hopes of fixing unexpected bottlenecks on its Model 3 production line. Perbix launched in 1976 and employs 150 people in a suburb north of Minneapolis. Tesla said it’s worked with the engineering firm for nearly three years, on a number of projects on the production line at its Fremont car factory and its Gigafactory in Reno. Terms of the deal were not immediately released.

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Tesla lays off hundreds of employees amid Model 3 ‘production hell’

Tesla confirmed Friday afternoon that it has laid off hundreds of employees this week following reports that the company had cut somewhere between 300 and 700 jobs.

The job cuts come as the Palo Alto-based electric car company ramps up manufacturing for its moderately priced Model 3. CEO Elon Musk last week said the company was delaying the unveiling of its all-electric semi truck as Model 3 production hit assembly-line snags.

The layoffs were not part of structured reductions but as a result of company-wide annual reviews, a Tesla spokesperson said in a statement to the Silicon Valley Business Journal on Friday afternoon. As part of the review process, some workers received promotions and bonuses, she said, and the company is continuing to hire.

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Sunnyvale manufacturer moves HQ to Texas, plans to double headcount there

The company [SOLiD] moved into the Sunnyvale space just four years ago, excitedly touting the space then as its new U.S. headquarters and a place to grow. In an interview, an executive cites the Bay Area’s expensive real estate as one reason for the move to Texas. 

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Electronics company to pare down San Jose operations, move manufacturing out of state

The company [Avnet] is closing two of its three Silicon Valley facilities and laying off nearly 100 employees as it moves its manufacturing operations out of state.

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​Tesla to invest additional $350 million in its Nevada Gigafactory

The investment will bring electric motor and gearbox component production lines for the Model 3 to the Reno-based facility, Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval said Tuesday during his State of the State speech, per Fortune. The move will add 550 new jobs at the Gigafactory.

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Tesla switches on Gigafactory

The Palo Alto-based company began “mass production” of its lithium-ion battery cells Wednesday at its plant outside Reno, Nevada. The company has already partnered with Panasonic Corp. to build the batteries, which will be used in Tesla’s energy-storage products and in its Model 3 sedan, the company said in a blog post.

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As Trump takes aim at unions, labor’s clout sags in California

A recent analysis by the Bureau of Labor Statistics found that union membership as a percentage of the entire labor force declined in 24 states in 2015 compared to the year before, while some 34 states and the District of Columbia were down from where they were a decade earlier. . . Union membership in California fell by .6 percent over the last 10 years, falling to 15.9 percent in 2015 from 16.5 percent in 2005.

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Here’s why California’s high-speed rail system wants permission to buy foreign train components

The California High-Speed Rail Authority filed a waiver request earlier this week with the Federal Railroad Administration that would exempt the authority from the “buy America” requirements of federal law because no U.S. passenger train manufacturers currently exist.

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Tesla seeks huge expansion in Fremont to add 3,000 more workers

Electric carmaker Tesla Motors Inc. wants to build 4.6 million square feet of new space for its factory in Fremont — a move that would ramp up production to 500,000 cars per year and add more than 3,000 workers.

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Economic optimism fading in Bay Area Council’s poll

In the fourth of a series of releases based on its annual surveys, 27 percent of respondents thought the economy will show improvement over the next six months versus 50 percent who answered the question optimistically two years ago. Another 21 percent in this year’s survey believe the economy will be worse in six months against only 9 percent who felt that way in 2014.

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Brown’s Stance on School Bonds Puts Him at Odds with Construction Industry

The governor believes he has identified school construction as an area of government inefficiency. The state covers half of the cost of school facilities through voter-approved general obligation bonds. Gov. Jerry Brown has said he wants the state to downsize its program so that state revenue would be available only to poorer districts that couldn’t raise money locally.

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Economists Pull Back on Growth Expectations for Late 2015

Economists are optimistic about economic growth in the remainder of 2015, but expectations are rolled back from last quarter, a new survey of members of the National Association for Business Economics (NABE) shows.

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