Chinese EV giant BYD ramps up hiring as Beijing prioritises employment

BEIJING (Reuters) - BYD has significantly ramped up hiring, increasing its workforce to more than 900,000 people as of Friday, a senior manager said, making the Chinese electric vehicle giant one of the largest employers in the country.

The move comes as the Chinese government has been prioritising a push to create more jobs, for college graduates in particular as its economy falters.

The total headcount, up 5.8% from the end of August, makes BYD the largest employer among more than 5,300 companies listed on the Chinese mainland stock exchanges, Li Yunfei, BYD's general manager for branding and public relations, said in a post on his Weibo account.

With nearly 110,000 technology and R&D staff, BYD is the world's largest carmaker as measured by R&D personnel, Li said, adding that the company has hired nearly 50,000 fresh graduates over the past two years.

Li didn't give a breakdown by location in terms of hiring.

A record number of college graduates this year are hunting for jobs in a labour market depressed by COVID-19-induced disruptions as well as regulatory crackdowns on the country's finance, tech and education sectors.

The jobless rate for the roughly 100 million Chinese youth aged 16-24 spiked to a 2024 high of 17.1% in July, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

BYD, alongside other domestic titans such as online retailer JD.com, are among few major companies that are on a big hiring spree.

Other automaking peers especially for foreign brands have been laying off staff in China as sales plummet. SAIC and its joint venture partners Volkswagen and General Motors planned to slash jobs by double-digit percentages this year, Reuters reported in March, while Honda has been scaling down its workforce with its two joint ventures in China this year.

BYD said in its latest earnings report that it had about 750,000 employees as of June 30 with the total staff costs accounting for 17.54% of its revenue in the first six months.

That equals to an average cost of 11,700 yuan ($1,649.28) per person per month during the period, according to a Reuters calculation.

The company didn't immediately respond to a Reuters query on whether the number in the earnings report is comparable to what Li shared on Friday.

BYD reported improved net profit in the second quarter, even though it led a protracted price war with aggressive discounts on its best-selling models.

($1 = 7.0940 Chinese yuan renminbi)

(Reporting by Qiaoyi Li, Zhang Yan and Kevin Krolicki; Editing by Susan Fenton)