If you've been out toward Bastrop lately, you might've noticed things are getting a little more... rocket-y. SpaceX is closing in on a major workforce milestone in the region, with headcount at its facilities east of Austin potentially crossing the 2,000-employee mark in the not-too-distant future.
For a company that basically dropped into the area quietly a few years back, that's a pretty serious footprint. We're talking about a full-blown operation that's been steadily pulling in engineers, technicians, and support staff — and it doesn't look like Elon Musk's space venture is putting the brakes on hiring anytime soon.
The growth is hard to ignore if you're keeping tabs on what's happening in the eastern corridor. Between the Tesla gigafactory already reshaping the area's economy and now SpaceX stacking up thousands of jobs, that stretch of highway between Austin and Bastrop is turning into something of a tech-industrial corridor that nobody really saw coming a decade ago.
For locals in those communities, it's a double-edged thing — more jobs and economic activity is obviously welcome, but the pressure on housing, roads, and local infrastructure is real. Anyone who's tried to grab lunch in Bastrop on a weekday lately knows the crowds have changed.
Either way, SpaceX crossing 2,000 employees here would cement its status as one of the bigger employers in the greater Austin area — right up there with the heavy hitters that have made this region one of the hottest job markets in the country. Keep watching the eastern sky, Austin. Literally.