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Targeted layoffs at Blue Origin

It appears that the upper management at Blue Origin has finally realized that a large Human Resource (HR) department contributes no real productive quality to a company, and in fact usually acts to reduce the company’s productive capabilities. According to reports from some company employees, it has begun to downsize this division.

Micah Thornton, a production control specialist at Blue Origin, wrote on LinkedIn that “several people from the Blue Origin Space Human Resource/Talent Acquisition team have been let go due to downsizing.” Several other employees wrote that they were laid off on Tuesday and are seeking new roles elsewhere.

This could be a very good sign for Blue Origin, or it could mean nothing. Other than periodically flying its reusable New Shepard suborbital spacecraft, the company’s main accomplishment since its formation more than two decades ago has been to establish a reputation as an unfocused operation unable to get its most important projects completed on time. Having a big HR department likely helps explain that history, and getting it reduced suggests management might be trying to get the company focused on its real mission.

Or not. HR employees are not engineers. Shifting them to other positions (which it appears the company is doing) simply rearranges the deck chairs on the Titanic.

We shall have to wait and see what transpires next. But then, that is all we have been doing in connection with Blue Origin for the past seven years.

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


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"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

3 comments

  • Jeff Wright

    At last—somebody besides engineers gets the axe.

    HR personel are useless eaters.

    Oh…for all you fathers out there…never let your daughters date anyone in construction…. that’s another term for “bum.’

    “Oh, it’s seasonal..yadda yadda..

  • Jeff

    I had a boss years ago when dealing with pesky and intrusive HR personel would scowl and them and say, “Just remember, you’re nothing but overhead!”

  • Rick Wrad

    Other than keeping their company informed on federal,state and local laws and regulations regarding employment and government edicts. Occasional vetting of insurance companies (without personal gain (kickbacks))to keep the company
    more profitable. HR has no other benefit to a company.
    I have witnessed many companies ran by the HR department and not the CEO’s. This has lead to the demise of many well founded and well run small business that thought they needed an HR department.
    I’m beginning to think our government is run by HR and the outcome is obvious.
    Good for Blue Origin to recognize HR is simply dead weight,keeping them on the ground,hopefully it’s not too late.

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