NORMAL, Ill. – The Rivian Automotive plant in Bloomington-Normal may have been saved from the job-cutting ax for now.
A Peoria TV station reports Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe says the plant will not bear the brunt of any layoffs right now.
Rivian sent WMBD News an e-mail distributed to all employees, referencing the meeting had with them last week.
It says some programs will be stopped, certain non-manufacturing hiring will be halted, and cuts will be made to reduce material spending and operating expenses.
It doesn’t reference job cuts.
Scaringe’s e-mail reiterates the company is financially well-positioned as it works toward profitability, but that the company’s strategy must support sustained growth.
A spokesperson declined to answer further questions.
The entirety of Scaringe’s e-mail is below.
Hi Team,
I’d like to address the news reports that are circulating about restructuring at Rivian. The reports speculate broadly on many intricate internal discussions about our business so I wanted to offer more clarity.
As discussed in recent all hands meetings, we’ve been working to focus our business in order to stay ahead of the changing economic landscape. We are financially well positioned and our outlook remains strong, but to fully realize our objectives it is critical that our strategy supports our sustainable growth as we ramp towards profitability. Earlier this year, we outlined our core strategic priorities for the next 18 months:
1) Ramping and enhancing R1 and EDV
2) Accelerating R2 development
3) Continuing to ramp our go-to-market capabilities, including our charging and service infrastructure
4) Optimizing costs and operating expenses across the business
As a result, we’ve implemented changes across Rivian, including prioritizing certain programs (and stopping some), halting certain non-manufacturing hiring and adopting major cost down efforts to reduce material spend and operating expenses. We also began the process of aligning the organization as a whole to ensure we are as focused, nimble and efficient as possible to achieve our priorities and objectives.
The hardest part of this process has been working through our organization to assess the size and structure of our teams and how well this aligns with our strategic plan. Our team is the core of Rivian and we are working to be as thoughtful as possible as we consider any reductions. We will always be focused on growth, however, Rivian is not immune to the current economic circumstances and we need to make sure we can grow sustainably. Every decision about our team is being assessed through the lens of our strategic priorities, not as a mechanism to simply reduce costs. Our team will continue to grow in support of our production ramp and product roadmap.
This is not how we intended for you to hear about this. We had hoped these very sensitive and complex conversations would have stayed within Rivian until we could address them more comprehensively. However, because information is coming out unofficially, I wanted to personally address it. I’ll be sharing more this Friday at our scheduled All-Hands meeting.
Thank you everyone.
RJ
