Dyson is axeing nearly a third of its UK workforce in a shake-up blamed on ‘increasingly fierce and competitive global markets’.
The vacuum-cleaner maker, founded in 1991 by inventor Sir James Dyson, will cut around 1,000 of its 3,500 jobs in Britain.
The news is a blow to Labour less than a week into the new government but is understood not to be connected to the election result.
Job cuts: Dyson, founded in 1991 by inventor Sir James Dyson (pictured), will cut around 1,000 of its 3,500 jobs in Britain
Founder Dyson, a prominent Brexit supporter, has been increasingly critical of Britain’s ‘short-sighted’ approach to business amid increasing regulations and rising corporation tax.
Staff were told of the job cuts yesterday in an email from chief executive Hanno Kirner.
He said: ‘We have grown quickly and, like all companies, we review our global structures from time to time to ensure we are prepared for the future.
‘As such, we are proposing changes to our organisation, which may result in redundancies.’
Kirner acknowledged that the restructuring would be ‘incredibly painful’ and said those whose jobs are at risk would be ‘supported through the process’.
Dyson makes a range of products including hand dryers, hair appliances, fans and heaters as well as its vacuum cleaners. The group’s UK base is in Wiltshire but it also has offices in London and Bristol.
The Mail understands that yesterday’s announcement did not mean that UK jobs were being moved overseas. Britain will remain a key location for the company’s research and development work.
But the decision highlights the difficulties facing the UK in keeping jobs especially after the previous government hiked corporation tax from 19 per cent to 25 per cent.
That was cited by drug maker AstraZeneca when it chose last year to build a £320million factory in the Republic of Ireland instead.
Dyson has already been axing jobs in recent years, cutting 600 in the UK and 300 overseas at the start of the pandemic.
It began moving manufacturing from Wiltshire to Malaysia in 2002. It opened a plant in Singapore to make digital motors in 2013.
In a newspaper interview last December Dyson, 77, claimed ‘wealth generation’ and ‘growth’ had become ‘dirty words’, in a broadside against both the then-Tory government and Labour.
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