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Dyson is cutting around 1,000 jobs in the UK, equivalent to more than a quarter of the company’s workforce in the country.
Employees at the maker of vacuum cleaners and air filters were notified of the layoffs Tuesday morning, according to people familiar with the matter, part of a broader move to cut the company’s 15,000-person global workforce.
The job cuts are a blow to the UK and come on the same day that the new Enterprise Secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, gathered more than 100 business leaders to set out his priorities.
Dyson’s The largest market is Asia, where the company must compete with local rivals that often produce products that look similar to those produced by the company.
“Dyson operates in an increasingly competitive and dynamic global marketplace, where the pace of innovation and change is only accelerating. We know that we need to be entrepreneurial and agile at all times,” said Hanno Kirner, CEO.
“We have grown rapidly and like every company, we review our global structure from time to time to ensure we are ready for the future,” he added, saying job cuts were “always extremely painful”.
The review that led to the dismissals began before the UK general election and was convened in May, and the dismissals were unrelated, according to people familiar with the process.
Dyson employs around 3,500 people in the UK. The company did not say how many jobs would be cut globally, with reviews taking place on a country-by-country basis.
The company, still overseen by founder Sir James Dyson, has grown beyond its original focus on vacuum cleaners into products including hair dryers, fans and air purifiers. Its engineers are working on dozens of potential projects, many of which are never revealed.
Dyson in 2019 abandoned a £2bn effort to break into electric vehicle manufacturing, although the company continues to research battery production for its wireless products.
The cuts in the UK are expected to affect every division, including the management ranks. The UK will remain the company’s research and development hub and will remain its main product development hub, although some of that work will be done in Singapore.
But the job cuts risk further complicating perceptions in the UK of the company’s founder, one of Britain’s most successful inventors and entrepreneurs.
Billionaire lost a defamation war last year sued the publisher of the Daily Mirror over an article that called the industrialist a “hypocrite” for backing Brexit but then moving his company headquarters to Singapore.
At the time, the company said Brexit was not the driving force behind the move, which it said was for commercial reasons, noting that most of its customers and all of its manufacturing operations were in Asia.
In December, Sir James Dyson said the UK’s current political leaders, from both the Conservative and Labour parties, were not “growth-oriented” and that “wealth creation and growth” had become “dirty words”.
New prime minister Sir Keir Starmer and chancellor Rachel Reeves have put “growth” at the heart of their ambitions for the UK but face repeated accusations from opponents that they will need to raise taxes.
The Dyson founder clashed with former Conservative prime minister Jeremy Hunt during a meeting at No 11 Downing Street in March. described by observers as “fiery”According to a person familiar with the conversation, Hunt asked the businessman: “If you think you can do better, why don’t you run for office?”
