About a month after Blue Origin successfully launched its long-delayed flagship rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida, the Jeff Bezos-backed rocket company reportedly prepares for its first round of layoffs. The move comes as Elon Musk's SpaceX continues dominating the commercial space industry, raising questions about how far Blue Origin has fallen behind in the global space race. 

Bloomberg reports that Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp held an all-hands employee meeting on Thursday morning to address new cost-cutting measures, including terminating about 10% of the workforce. The report was based on insiders at the meeting. 

According to Bloomberg, Blue Origin has about 14,000 employees on payroll across its headquarters in Seattle and operation sites in Florida, Texas, and Alabama. The 10% cut would equate to about 1,400 employees and focus on "thinning out layers" of management.

On Jan. 16, Blue Origin's New Glenn launched from Cape Canaveral, placing the company's Blue Ring Pathfinder test satellite into orbit. 

However, the rocket's reusable first-stage booster failed to land on a barge in the Atlantic Ocean, something SpaceX's reusable booster rockets do weekly, blasting Starlink satellites into orbit. 

Last August, Bloomberg noted that testing included a "factory mishap that damaged a portion of a future New Glenn rocket," adding the rocket company has "grappled with development delays, a sluggish corporate culture and explosive setbacks." 

Bezos and Musk have had a rocket-size competition. Who has the bigger rocket?

As previously noted, SpaceX leads the global rocket race, launching 86% of all upmass to space in the third quarter of 2024. Also, SpaceX's Starlink is dominating the global space internet race.