SpaceX Layoffs Will Hurt Employees With These Job Titles

A few days ago, SpaceX announced its plans on laying off 10 percent of its workforce. At that time, there is no information about which jobs will suffer from this decision. But now we know.

At first, the company refused to reveal the total number of employees that will be let go but only said that over 6,000 staff members will stay. Based on some calculation on the space agency's last reported size, approximately 700 positions were affected. On Twitter, an entrepreneur, rocket engineer who has no connection with SpaceX whatsoever suggested that the number might be 850 job titles.

On Wednesday, the Business Insider disclosed that it had a copy of the document that the space agency sent to the Employment Development Department of California.

In the document, job titles of 557 employees who were working at SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California that will suffer from the layoffs are listed. It seems like technicians will be affected the most.

In the report of Business Insider, a total of 174 technicians will have to leave their positions. This number accounted for 30.2 percent of the layoffs. 97 engineers will lose their jobs. Machinists and specialist have the lowest number with 35 and 33 people respectively.

Business Insider also examined which words appeared the most when reporting the layoffs. The words “propulsion” and “structures” made up 17 percent of the descriptions.

It seems like the layoffs of SpaceX target people who are responsible for the rockets’ designing and building instead of supervisors or supervisors. The reason for this might be the fact that SpaceX takes into account reusability. The need for engineers and technicians decreases after the rockets are completed.

But still, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. The loss of Elon Musk might very well be the gain for the industry as many experienced rocket-builders are on the hunt for their new jobs.