diff --git a/core/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/rdd/NewHadoopRDD.scala b/core/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/rdd/NewHadoopRDD.scala
index 7fdbe7b971ac..c6959a5a4daf 100644
--- a/core/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/rdd/NewHadoopRDD.scala
+++ b/core/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/rdd/NewHadoopRDD.scala
@@ -123,6 +123,10 @@ class NewHadoopRDD[K, V](
 
   override def getPartitions: Array[Partition] = {
     val inputFormat = inputFormatClass.getConstructor().newInstance()
+    // setMinPartitions below will call FileInputFormat.listStatus(), which can be quite slow when
+    // traversing a large number of directories and files. Parallelize it.
+    _conf.setIfUnset(FileInputFormat.LIST_STATUS_NUM_THREADS,
+      Runtime.getRuntime.availableProcessors().toString)
     inputFormat match {
       case configurable: Configurable =>
         configurable.setConf(_conf)