Do pilots actually level up? How?

[ESonix]

Don’t know if this is a bug or intended behavior, but my pilots never seem to level up, even though I have them constantly doing “busywork” mining or protecting ships or whatever.

How bad is it? Well I’ve had a number of pilots running in my current game for like 20-30 hours and none of them have leveled up even a single star. Very frustrating, this results in a micro-management nightmare when your empire starts to get large.

So, do pilots actually ever level up at all? If so, what’s the most effective way to get them to level at a reasonable rate?