BYD is recruiting more than 8,000 workers across multiple plants at its Xi'an production base, its largest manufacturing hub worldwide, according to recruitment notices posted by local agencies and reported by Yicai. The site holds a combined annual capacity of up to 1.5 million vehicles across four factory phases and built more than one million vehicles in 2024 alone.

The hiring push reverses this year's earlier constraint, when BYD's switch to second-generation Blade Battery cells and the accompanying line upgrades bottlenecked several model lines. The automaker temporarily cut the Xi'an workforce and transferred employees to expanding operations in Zhengzhou, Hefei and the Shenzhen-Shanwei cooperation zone.

Why is BYD hiring again so quickly?

All four Xi'an sites have resumed normal production schedules, Feng Lei, head of the industrial research institute at market research firm HSMAP, told Yicai. The recovery—combined with surging export orders—has pushed labour shortages back to the top of the agenda.

Provincial data confirms the scale of the turnaround. Vehicle output in Shaanxi province, where Xi'an sits, fell nearly 50% year-on-year over the first seven months of 2026. August production alone reached 138,900 vehicles, up 55.4% from July and 17.9% year-on-year, according to China's National Bureau of Statistics.

The openings target skilled positions in welding, painting and final assembly, with signing bonuses of up to CN¥6,000 (US$890) and monthly pay reaching CN¥10,000. Xi'an builds high-volume models from BYD's Dynasty and Ocean lineups alongside output from some premium brands.

What do August sales numbers show?

BYD sold a record 440,293 new energy vehicles in August, up 17.8% year-on-year. Overseas deliveries did all the work: they surged 134.5% to a record 189,466 vehicles, while domestic sales fell 14.3%.

Feng said Xi'an production could return to its previous peak, but export-facing models currently run full schedules while domestic-market models face intense competition—making a full recovery to peak annual output considerably harder to achieve.

Do overseas plants reduce the load on Xi'an?

Not yet, and the structure suggests not soon. Core components—including Blade Batteries, e-Platform 3.0 powertrains and integrated electronics—continue to come out of China's vertically integrated domestic supply chain regardless of where final assembly happens.

Earlier in September, BYD's Special Adviser for Europe, Alfredo Altavilla, claimed the company will make locally everything it sells in Europe, a plan he said requires three local assembly plants and a battery factory. That remains an announced intention, not confirmed capacity. For now, regional plants in Thailand, Brazil and Hungary function primarily as tariff-compliant assembly sites for components still largely sourced from hubs like Xi'an.

This structure ties BYD's overseas growth more tightly to domestic capacity than the regional-plant announcements alone suggest. Any renewed constraint at Xi'an—whether from battery transitions, labour shortages or component bottlenecks—would likely surface as an export delay well before it registers as a European or Latin American manufacturing problem.

What to watch next

Track whether Xi'an returns to its previous production peak, how quickly BYD fills the 8,000 openings at the advertised CN¥10,000 monthly pay, and whether Altavilla's three-plant European plan converts from stated intention into confirmed capacity with committed dates.