"We grew and hired incredibly fast in the last few years," CEO Dave Limp wrote in an email -- a copy of which was obtained by AFP -- explaining the company's "tough" decision.

"With that growth came more bureaucracy and less focus than we needed," he continued, adding that the makeup of the company "must change."

"Sadly, this resulted in eliminating some positions in engineering, R&D, and program/project management and thinning out our layers of management," he said.

The decision will affect more than 1,000 people given the firm's roughly 11,000 employees, according to a recent PitchBook estimate of staffing levels.

Blue Origin is one of the United States' largest private space companies, and has in recent years been attempting to win lucrative government contracts in an industry still largely dominated by Elon Musk's SpaceX.

Its massive New Glenn rocket recently reached orbital space for the first time, marking a potential turning point in the commercial space race.