Jeff Bezos-backed Blue Origin cutting 10% of workforce – Press Enterprise

By Eric Johnson, Loren Grush and Sana Pashankar | BloombergJeff Bezos’ space company Blue Origin is said to cut 10% of its workforce, according to a memo sent to employees.The space company, which has offices in El Segundo and Woodland Hills, laid out the personnel shakeup during an all-hands employee meeting with Chief Executive Officer Dave Limp for Thursday morning.An employee who attended the meeting and asked not to be identified said they were told the U.S. staff cuts amounted to 1,300 people.The company is looking to cut costs, trim manager ranks, and focus resources on ramping up rocket launches after years of R&D work, confirming cuts and a strategy first reported Wednesday by Bloomberg.In a memo sent to employees, Limp said that the company’s growth led to “more bureaucracy and less focus” than needed after a hiring spree over the past few years.“Sadly, this resulted in eliminating some positions in engineering, R&D, and program/project management and thinning out our layers of management,” Limp wrote in the email.The surprise round of layoffs comes about a month after Blue Origin debuted its flagship New Glenn rocket following years of delays and development setbacks.Limp, an ex-Amazon leader, was hired in 2023 to help shake the company out of a years-long R&D slump. Among its pressing goals is to ramp up New Glenn flights and clear some $10 billion worth of launch contracts.Limp added that the company is looking to the future, including landing an uncrewed vehicle on the moon in 2025 and increasing the cadence of New Glenn and New Shepard launches.The company operates an engine production facility in Huntsville, Alabama, and facilities in Arlington, Va.; Denver, Phoenix, Washington, D.C., with rocket propulsion, reusable rocket development and design offices in Woodland Hills, El Segundo and the Pasadena area.