The giant company laid off 85% of its staff in one fell swoop

Ahmedabad. 31 March 2023, Friday

Virgin Orbit, the rocket company founded by billionaire Richard Branson, has laid off about 85 percent of its workforce, or 675 employees. Virgin Orbit has ceased operations for the foreseeable future, company CEO Dan Hart said Thursday.

"Unfortunately we have not been able to raise funds for the company so we now have no other option but to take these drastic painful measures," Hart told employees.

In a US securities filing, the company announced layoffs of approximately 675 employees, approximately 85 percent of the company's total workforce.

The company will have to pay a total of approximately $1.5 million due to this drastic decision of retrenchment including salary and other allowances as per rules. The company hopes to complete the retrenchment process by April 3.

Branson founded Virgin Orbit in 2017 after splitting from its sister company Virgin Galactic. Virgin Orbit is developing an air-launch rocket, known as LauncherOne, to carry small satellites into orbit.

In January, its rocket that carried the satellites into space suffered a malfunction and plans for the first in-orbital launch from Britain ended abruptly. However, a Virgin Orbit spokesperson said in a March 15 statement that "the mission failure investigation is nearly complete and our next product rocket with necessary modifications is in the final stages of assembly and testing."