Dyson is planning to axe more than a quarter of its UK jobs as part of a major restructuring. The vacuum cleaner manufacturer is to cut around 1,000 of its roughly 3,500 jobs in the UK, it told staff in an email on Tuesday morning.
The company, which also makes air treatment and haircare technology, is based in Wiltshire, but also has offices in London and Bristol. Chief executive Hanno Kirner told employees: “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. Dyson operates in increasingly fierce and competitive global markets, in which the pace of innovation and change is only accelerating.”
The chief executive, who was only appointed in February of this year, says all those affected by the cuts will be supported through them. Dyson has not officially confirmed which areas of the business will be impacted by the move, reports The Mirror.
According to reports, the company, which is best known for bagless vacuum cleaners, hair dryers and heaters, signalled that the UK would remain central for its research and development operations. Dyson’s campus at Malmesbury in Wiltshire, which had been the UK’s headquarters until 2019 when it moved to Singapore, will also continue to be home to the Dyson Institute, which provides undergraduate engineering programmes. Yet the campus is set to be affected.
Sales at the UK’s arm of the business, Dyson Ltd, fell 10% to £376million in 2022 according to its most recent accounts on Companies House. However, in the same year its global sales rose from £6billion to £6.5billion.