Rocket Maker Begins Major Layoffs After Debuting its New Glenn Ship

Blue Origin leadership recently announced plans to lay off more than 1000 employees, making up 10% of its workforce. This cut follows just a month after the company debuted its long-awaited New Glenn rocket.

The layoffs, announced to workers in an all-hands meeting on January 13, are part of the rocket maker’s effort to reduce costs and speed up launches. Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp led the briefing, telling employees that the company “just came to the painful conclusion that we aren’t set up for the kind of success that we really wanted to have” when put up against SpaceX and its beast of a rocket, the Falcon 9.

To meet these goals, the company will be sacrificing 10% of its 14,000-employee workforce. The tally could reach up to 2,000 depending on performance reviews. The job cuts are expected to affect positions in engineering, R&D, and program and project management.

“Our primary focus in 2025 and beyond is to scale our manufacturing output and launch cadence with speed, decisiveness, and efficiency for our customers,” Limp stated in an email to his staff. “We grew and hired incredibly fast in the last few years, and with that growth came more bureaucracy and less focus than we needed.”

The announcement comes at an otherwise bright time for Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin, following less than a month after the company debuted its New Glenn rocket. The ship, despite experiencing numerous setbacks that stretched across three CEOs, finally made its maiden launch on January 16. This was Blue Origin’s first time sending a rocket into orbit, with its smaller New Sheppard ships remaining suborbital.

“We need to lower the cost of access to space … and that’s what New Glenn, our orbital vehicle, is all about,” stated Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos.

FMI: www.blueorigin.com