SpaceX Layoffs

[Micahgtb]

 Received some bad news from and employee last night...

"Nearly 10% of the SpaceX population got let go today some of whom were close friends of mine, you will be missed, but better things are coming your way, you know who you are, keep in touch and good luck on your future endeavors."

That employee cites, "cost cutting" as they main reason. I just wonder if they can keep up the pace they are at with these cuts. Any ideas?

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(Old thread rebumped due to another layoff situation - editing out dead link - Chris)

[Lars_J]

If true, I'm not surprised. Their employee growth has been pretty drastic for the last few years. At some point you have to take a hard look at your bottom line. It is a bummer for the people affected, though.

[Lar]

This seems confusing to me, because
1. I thought they had retention problems and were always hiring
2. conventional wisdom is that to process multiple launches at once, you need multiple ground crews.

So I'm confused.

[Lars_J]

This seems confusing to me, because
1. I thought they had retention problems and were always hiring
2. conventional wisdom is that to process multiple launches at once, you need multiple ground crews.

2. Ground crew staff is a very small minority of SpaceX employees.

And there is no clue (again, if true) that this was a 10% cut across all employee divisions. That wouldn't make sense.

[Lee Jay]

This seems confusing to me, because
1. I thought they had retention problems and were always hiring
2. conventional wisdom is that to process multiple launches at once, you need multiple ground crews.

So I'm confused.

I've been wondering for a long time how they could sustain all the people and all the activities on so little revenue.  It looks from the outside like they have been growing on the back of a large number of deposits and relatively few actual flight dollars.  Of course, looks can be deceiving but this news, if true, would lend a bit of support to that conjecture.

[sdsds]

Amanda B. (@aebennett on twitter) is also curious, and she uses the oh-so-popular euphemism, "reduction in force." If this were true, the relative silence would be astonishing.

[Lar]

at the risk of veering way way way off topic I think 10% across the board would be odd... I know when I've been in (non union, so it wasn't strict seniority based) orgs that had layoffs it was not uniformly applied and it was also used to choose who to keep (ala Jack Welch as I think someone alluded to somewhere)

[Nate_Trost]

I think there might be some confusion between "across the board" meaning 10% of each department (unlikely) or just 10% of the total headcount.

[friendly3]

Don't forget their statement two days ago :

At this point, we are highly confident of being able to land successfully (...) and refly the rocket with no required refurbishment.

They seem to be very confident, so maybe the reason is they know they won't have to build dozens of cores per year as they planned to (Shotwell once said 40). That would explain the layoffs.

[RonM]

I don't know about this. Spacex.com lists over 360 job openings.

http://www.spacex.com/careers/list

Companies do layoff workers even when they are hiring. Sometimes the workers they are getting rid of don't qualify for the openings. Other times the people being let go can apply for the open positions and actually don't leave the company.

[QuantumG]

More likely, not enough of you have been working weekends.

[docmordrid]

Sometimes you simply rebalance the workforce, moving from one need to another - especially if production methods change.  More robots, hybrid  subtractive/additive manufacturing machines etc. require fewer warm bodies on the line or in the machinists shop.

[sdsds]

There appear to be commonalities between this rumored workforce reduction at SpaceX and the one anticipated at ULA:
 - the 10% number
 - the use of "reduction in force" to describe the action
 - the reddit discussion of the ULA action mentions SpaceX in its title

Combine that with the silence from the young, twitter-enabled SpaceX workforce members who would have been effected and there's only one sensible conclusion: those discussing it have misunderstood the ULA action, thinking it applied to SpaceX.

[Bryn]

There appear to be commonalities between this rumored workforce reduction at SpaceX and the one anticipated at ULA:
 - the 10% number
 - the use of "reduction in force" to describe the action
 - the reddit discussion of the ULA action mentions SpaceX in its title

Combine that with the silence from the young, twitter-enabled SpaceX workforce members who would have been effected and there's only one sensible conclusion: those discussing it have misunderstood the ULA action, thinking it applied to SpaceX.

I thought the same thing, a mix up with the ULA announcement.  I work at ULA, and the reduction will not actually happen until October.  Also, at this point it is not 10%. 
The first post in the thread quotes a person on social media stating, "laid off today," so that makes me think something could be going on at SpaceX.  Maybe they are just re-structuring to meet anticipated skillsets needed for the future.  Or maybe it just isn't true at all.   

[QuantumG]

Or maybe it just isn't true at all.

Only response I've gotten from SpaceX employees so far is: oh, really?

So, if it has happened, or is happening, it's incredibly quiet.

[MechE31]

I can confirm via first hand knowledge this did happen on Monday. All 4 major sites (Hawthorne, Cape, McGregor and Vandy) were impacted.

These were not deemed layoffs or reduction in workforce, just so happens 10% of the workforce was let go in one day.

[Coastal Ron]

Don't forget their statement two days ago :

At this point, we are highly confident of being able to land successfully (...) and refly the rocket with no required refurbishment.

They seem to be very confident, so maybe the reason is they know they won't have to build dozens of cores per year as they planned to (Shotwell once said 40). That would explain the layoffs.

Shotwell just stated this year that they plan to get to 40 cores per year production by the end of this year, and they obviously would have already factored in potential reusability.

Keep in mind also for reusability that Shotwell also stated that customers could choose between expendable and reusable launchers, and that they launch market is somewhat conservative.  Add in that Musk said they won't be re-flying any stages until next year, and that all the customers signed up through that point are on expendable launchers, and that means that they still need the ability to build lots of cores in their factory.

As to this rumor, until there is some validation I would take it with a grain of salt...

[Coastal Ron]

I can confirm via first hand knowledge this did happen on Monday. All 4 major sites (Hawthorne, Cape, McGregor and Vandy) were impacted.

These were not deemed layoffs or reduction in workforce, just so happens 10% of the workforce was let go in one day.

Any other details you can provide?

For instance, who stated it was 10% (i.e. the person laying you off, or another worker), and was it across the board or for a particular product or type of worker?

If, as you say, it was at every location, then that implies it is for Falcon 9 launch operations at the least (Cape & Vandy as you put it), whereas Hawthorne and McGregor could be production related for either Falcon 9 or even Dragon.

If possible too, do you know what type of positions were laid off?

[GalacticIntruder]

380 full time people with skill-sets? or Contractors/Temps? Or the paper pushing departments, non-technical?

It is good to fire the dead weight and bottom 10 percent performers, write-ups, though.

I would not make too much of it without more info.

[Prober]

In raw numbers this would mean like 300 or more people correct?