BYD hires 150,000 people despite declining sales: What’s going on at this Chinese giant?
The Chinese giant BYD has just reached a symbolic milestone. With over 1.02 million employees worldwide, the company now employs more people than Toyota, General Motors, Ford, and Tesla combined. This is an impressive figure, especially considering that its workforce has grown significantly in recent months despite a slowdown in its automobile sales.
BYD continues to expand at an unprecedented pace. At the 33rd annual conference of the Chinese Society of Automotive Engineers (CSAE) held in China, its president Wang Chuanfu revealed a figure that clearly illustrates the scale of the company: BYD now employs over 1.02 million people worldwide. Specifically, around 960,000 employees work in China, while 60,000 are based overseas. The company also has up to 120,000 R&D engineers focused on areas such as batteries, electric motors, power electronics, and semiconductors.
A significant workforce that reflects the manufacturer’s vertical integration strategy. Unlike many competitors, BYD aims to master most of the technologies and components needed for its vehicles rather than purchasing them from external suppliers.
Over 150,000 additional employees in ten months
The increase in workforce size is all the more remarkable given that it occurs after a period of significant fluctuations. At the end of 2022, BYD employed 570,100 people. A year later, the company’s workforce grew to 703,500 employees, before experiencing another dramatic surge in 2024. By the end of that year, its workforce had reached nearly 968,900 people. However, this growth was not linear. According to its annual report, BYD had only 869,600 employees by the end of 2025, representing a decrease of nearly 99,000 people in twelve months. Production positions were reportedly particularly affected.
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Since then, the trend has completely reversed. By the end of June 2026, data compiled by S&P Global Market Intelligence showed 911,900 employees. Four months later, BYD now has over a million workers. This represents an additional 150,000 people since the start of the year, with more than 100,000 hired or added to the workforce since the end of the first half of the year. It is a remarkable development, even though the company’s sales are no longer growing at the same pace as before.
More employees than four major automakers combined
To gauge the scale of BYD, it is sufficient to compare its workforce to that of the world’s major automotive groups. By the end of 2025, Volkswagen employed 663,000 people, while Stellantis had nearly 259,000. Toyota, on the other hand, had 390,927 employees as of March 31, 2026. In the United States, Ford employed approximately 169,000 people at the end of 2025, compared to 156,000 at General Motors. Tesla reported 134,785 employees in its most recent annual report. Adding together the workforce of Toyota, General Motors, Ford, and Tesla yields 851,000 people.
BYD alone has nearly 170,000 employees, which is more than the total number of employees across these four automakers combined. This figure highlights the significant role the Chinese company plays in the global automotive industry. However, it’s important to note that these numbers do not necessarily mean BYD produces more cars or is less efficient than its competitors.
Why does BYD need so many employees?
To understand this discrepancy, one must examine what exactly is included in BYD’s industrial scope. The Chinese company does not solely manufacture electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles. It also produces batteries, engines, electronic components, semiconductors, energy storage systems, and even railway equipment. In addition, there is BYD Electronic, a subsidiary focused on producing electronic devices for other brands. This single business unit employed 165,000 people by the end of 2025. In other words, a significant portion of BYD’s workforce works in sectors that go far beyond the automotive industry.
This organization is the result of a deliberate strategic choice. Since its founding in 1994 as a battery manufacturer, BYD has gradually integrated a large portion of its value chain internally. This vertical integration enables it to better control its supply chains, production costs, and the development of technologies essential for electric vehicles. It also explains why its workforce is so large.
For comparison, BYD sold approximately 4.6 million vehicles in 2025, with nearly 870,000 employees by the end of the year. This amounts to about 5.3 vehicles per employee. Tesla has around 12 vehicles per employee, Volkswagen 13.5, and Toyota nearly 29. However, these ratios must be interpreted with great caution. They compare groups whose operations, reliance on subcontracting, and industrial scopes differ significantly. Thus, they alone cannot measure their true productivity.
Massive Hiring Despite Falling Sales
The paradox is that this new increase in production comes amid a less favorable business environment for BYD. In the first nine months of 2026, the company sold 3,131,576 vehicles, a 3.9% decline compared to the same period in 2025. September was still the best month of the year, with 463,561 units sold. However, the manufacturer must contend with increasingly fierce competition in its domestic market. In China, price wars continue to squeeze profit margins, while competitors such as Geely and Leapmotor are gaining ground.
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The financial results also reflect these difficulties. In the first half of 2026, BYD recorded sales of 344.8 billion yuan and a net profit of 12.3 billion yuan, both figures down from the previous year. As a result, the company’s growth increasingly relies on its international operations.
International operations become the main driver of growth
It is now outside China that BYD shows its best performance. Between January and September 2026, the manufacturer sold 1,342,960 vehicles in international markets, representing a 92.7% year-on-year increase. Overseas sales thus account for nearly 43% of its total volume. This is a significant proportion for a company that had long focused almost exclusively on its domestic market. This international expansion is accompanied by new industrial investments, particularly in Thailand, Brazil, and Hungary, where BYD is establishing local production capabilities.
But another figure shows that this transformation is still far from complete: of its 1.02 million employees, only 60,000 currently work outside China. Thus, barely 6% of the group’s workforce is based abroad, even though international markets now account for more than four out of ten vehicles sold. BYD remains a company heavily organized around its Chinese industrial base, despite its production presence abroad gradually expanding.