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DannyB [soylentnews.org] writes:

Employees report a rare round of layoffs at Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture [geekwire.com]

Several employees at Kent, Wash.-based Blue Origin [blueorigin.com] are reporting that they’ve been laid off, marking a rare turnabout in the rapid growth of Jeff Bezos’ space venture.

The reduction in force appears to be focused in the areas of human resources and talent acquisition [ . . . . ]

[ . . . . ] it looked as if “some (but not all) folks were given the opportunity to find another role” within the privately held company.

[ . . . . ] The company’s workforce tally was less than 1,000 as recently as 2018. Two years ago, that count was reported at nearly 4,000 employees [cnbc.com], and the figure rose to 6,000 [restonnow.com] by July 2022. Blue Origin’s current number of employees — including workers in Kent as well as in Alabama, California, Florida, Texas, the Washington, D.C., area and other locales [geekwire.com] — is said to have hit nearly 11,000. [wsj.com]

[ . . . . ] Blue Origin is continuing to hire employees for other types of jobs, primarily in technical fields.

Blue Origin needs to produce their BE-4 engine in volume and reusable. Their New Glenn rocket needs that engine and ULA's Vulcan Centaur rocket needs that same engine.

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