Tag: Employment

Categories
GeekWire

Blue Origin explores new frontiers in Phoenix and Denver

Orbital Reef space station
An artist’s concept shows the Orbital Reef space station. (Blue Origin Media)

Blue Origin says it’s hiring in Phoenix and Denver — two Western cities that represent relatively new frontiers for Jeff Bezos’ space venture.

The downtown Phoenix office is focusing on “avionics, systems engineering and integrated supply chain,” Blue Origin says on its career website, while the South Denver office will focus on “program management, systems engineering, avionics, software, integration and mission design” in support of Blue Origin’s launch vehicle and space systems programs.

The Denver area happens to be home to a growing number of space ventures, including past and present partners in some of Blue Origin’s high-profile projects.

Lockheed Martin, for example, was part of a Blue Origin-led team that bid unsuccessfully to build the first crewed lunar lander for NASA’s Artemis program. United Launch Alliance is a customer for Blue Origin’s BE-4 rocket engines, while Sierra Space is a major partner in Blue Origin’s Orbital Reef space station project.

And speaking of Orbital Reef, the Phoenix area is home to Arizona State University, which is leading the space station project’s research advisory group.

Get the full story on GeekWire
Categories
GeekWire

Can Amazon’s robots make work safer for humans?

Robot on Amazon warehouse floor
An Amazon video shows a robot nicknamed Bert carrying items across a warehouse. (Amazon via YouTube)

Bert and Ernie, Scooter and Kermit may have started out as warm and fuzzy Muppet characters, but now they’re part of Amazon’s team of warehouse robots as well.

Amazon showed off the latest members of its mechanical menagerie today in a blog post that focuses on how it’s using robotic research to improve workplace safety for its human employees.

For example, a type of robot nicknamed Ernie is designed to take boxy product containers known as totes off shelves at different heights, and then use its robotic arm to deliver the totes to warehouse employees at a standard height. The goal is to reduce the amount of reaching up or bending down that workers have to do.

“We’re known for being passionate about innovating for customers, but being able to innovate with robotics for our employees is something that gives me an extra kick of motivation each day,” Kevin Keck, worldwide director of advanced technology at Amazon, said in the blog posting. “The innovation with a robot like Ernie is interesting because while it doesn’t make the process go any faster, we’re optimistic, based on our testing, it can make our facilities safer for employees.”

Today’s inside look at the research being done at labs in the Seattle area, the Boston area and northern Italy comes in the wake of a couple of reports criticizing Amazon’s workplace safety record.

Get the full story on GeekWire
Categories
GeekWire

XPRIZE offers $5M for job training innovations

The nonprofit organization known as XPRIZE has been in charge of tech competitions focusing on far-out frontiers such as space travel and computerized avatars, but its latest contest hits closer to home: XPRIZE Rapid Reskilling is offering $5 million in prizes for innovations that could revolutionize job training for under-resourced communities.

The 30-month competition, sponsored by a nonprofit venture philanthropy organization called New Profit, kicks off today — just as the national emergency declared due to the coronavirus outbreak is passing the 100-day mark.

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

Boeing CEO says voluntary layoffs are on the way

Boeing Renton Factory
Boeing has been dealing with the worldwide grounding of its 737 MAX planes as well as the economic effects of the coronavirus pandemic. (GeekWire Photo)

Boeing CEO David Calhoun says the company is preparing a voluntary layoff program that’s aimed at reducing the need for “other workforce actions” as it deals with the economic repercussions of the coronavirus pandemic.

In a letter sent to employees, Calhoun said details about how the program works will be laid out in the next three to four weeks. Speaking on background, a Boeing official said several thousand employees are expected to take the voluntary layoff package or retire.

For the past year, Boeing has been struggling with the worldwide grounding of its 737 MAX passenger jets in the wake of two catastrophic crashes. The company was targeting the middle of this year to resolve all the safety issues and win the Federal Aviation Administration’s go-ahead to put the planes back into operation.

Then the pandemic hit. Last month, reports emerged about COVID-19 cases — and at least one death — among employees at Boeing’s production facilities in the Puget Sound region. Those facilities are now in the middle of a 14-day shutdown while Boeing conducts deep-cleaning operations at the plants and assesses the wider impact of the coronavirus outbreak.

Calhoun said Boeing was “doing everything possible to keep this team intact” during the pandemic.

“But one thing is already clear: It will take time for the aerospace industry to recover from the crisis. When the world emerges from the pandemic, the size of the commercial market and the types of products and services our customers want and need will likely be different. We will need to balance the supply and demand accordingly as the industry goes through the recovery process for years to come,” he told employees.

“It’s important we start adjusting to our new reality now,” he wrote.

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

Study: AI takes aim at high-paying jobs

Job exposure map
A map by the Brookings Institution uses shades of pink and red to indicate which cities are expected to be hard-hit by job disruption related to AI. (Brookings Graphic / Source: Brookings Analysis of Webb, 2019)

When experts talk about the disruptive effects of artificial intelligence, they tend to focus on low-paid laborers — but a newly published study suggests higher-paid, more highly educated workers will be increasingly exposed to job challenges.

The study puts Seattle toward the top of the list for AI-related job disruption.

The analysis, which draws on work by researchers at Stanford University and the Brookings Institution, makes use of a novel technique that connects AI-related patents with the job descriptions for different professions.

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

Space Talent rounds up final-frontier jobs

Blue Origin mission control
Blue Origin has more than 600 job openings nationwide. (Blue Origin Photo)

Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture and Elon Musk’s SpaceX are often at odds, but there’s at least one place where those two space-industry rivals are on the same page: the newly unveiled Space Talent job database.

The search engine for careers in the space industry is a project of Space Angels, a nationwide network designed to link angel investors with space entrepreneurs.

“If you’ve ever considered working in space, this jobs board has 3,000 reasons to make the leap,” Space Angels CEO Chad Anderson said in a tweet.

The database aggregates job postings from Blue Origin and SpaceX as well as smaller space ventures — including Kymeta Corp., Olis Robotics, Spaceflight Industries and Tethers Unlimited in the Seattle area.

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

Wash. Gov. Inslee voices concern over automation

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee says the coming age of wider automation and smarter artificial intelligence will require upgrades in educational and training systems — as well as improvements in the social safety net for those who would otherwise be left behind.

Get the news brief on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

Boeing works on ways to fill future pilot gap

Flight simulation
Boeing and the University of Central Florida’s Institute for Simulation and Training have developed a pilot training program that makes use of a virtual-reality co-pilot avatar. (Boeing Photo)

If Boeing is projecting a doubling in the global commercial airplane fleet over the next 20 years, it only makes sense that the pilot workforce may have to double as well.

That’s the conclusion that Boeing reaches in its 2018 Pilot & Technician Outlook, released today. The upshot? There’ll be a demand for 790,000 pilots over the next 20 years, representing “the most significant demand in the outlook’s nine-year history,” Boeing says.

“Despite strong global air traffic growth, the aviation industry continues to face a pilot labor supply challenge, raising concern about the existence of a global pilot shortage in the near term,” Keith Cooper, vice president of training and professional services at Boeing Global Services, said in today’s news release. “An emphasis on developing the next generation of pilots is key to help mitigate this.”

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

Elon Musk reveals 9 percent job cut at Tesla

Elon Musk with Tesla Semi and Roadster
Tesla CEO Elon Musk introduces the Semi truck and an updated Roadster at a high-profile event in November 2017. (Tesla via YouTube)

Just days after promising he’d make Tesla profitable within months, CEO Elon Musk announced today that 9 percent of the company’s workforce is being laid off as part of the effort to make it so.

Musk tweeted out his memo to employees, laying out the reasons for the layoffs.

He said the “difficult but necessary” decision was the result of a comprehensive organizational restructuring, targeting duplication as well as some job functions that, “while they made sense in the past, are difficult to justify today.”

“Given that Tesla has never made an annual profit in the almost 15 years since we have existed, profit is obviously not what motivates us,” he wrote. “What drives us is our mission to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable, clean energy, but we will never achieve that mission unless we eventually demonstrate that we can be sustainably profitable. That is a valid and fair criticism of Tesla’s history to date.”

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

Boeing details $100M workforce education plan

Boeing logo
The Boeing Co., which has its corporate headquarters in Chicago, says it’s devoting $100 million to workforce development programs. (Boeing Photo)

Boeing is launching new educational initiatives to follow through on its pledge to spend $100 million of its federal tax savings on workforce development programs.

The initiatives include a partnership with Degreed.com to give employees access to online lessons, certification courses and degree programs.

Another initiative will put $6 million into a partnership with the Thurgood Marshall College Fund and several historically black colleges and universities. That investment will support scholarships, internships and boot-camp programs to help students experience what it’s like to work at Boeing, the company said.

There’ll also be several new programs to help Boeing employees enhance their technical skills and keep up with industry trends. The focus of the first program will be digital literacy, Boeing said.

Get the full story on GeekWire.