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Sir James Dyson is the richest man in Britain, according to The Sunday Times Rich List.
Dyson is cutting 600 jobs in the UK and another 300 worldwide as the impact of the coronavirus accelerates the company’s restructuring plans.
The firm, best known for the invention of the bagless vacuum cleaner, said the pandemic was changing consumer habits as more people shopped online.
Dyson was founded by inventor Sir James Dyson, who topped the Sunday Times’ Rich Times list in May.
The company has a global workforce of 14,000, with 4,000 in the UK.
Most jobs will be lost in the retail and customer service functions.
Dyson uses his own people to sell in department stores, for example at John Lewis, but the move to the Internet has reduced the need for a presence on High Street. Jobs lost abroad, where the company operates in 80 countries, have similar roles.
- Inventor Sir James Dyson tops the UK’s rich list
A Dyson spokesman said: “The Covid-19 crisis has accelerated changes in consumer behavior, and therefore requires changes in how we relate to our customers and how we sell our products.”
He said the company would try to avoid mandatory layoffs whenever possible, and emphasized that it had not relinquished any staff or used any public money to support jobs anywhere in the world during the pandemic.
Most Dyson products are designed in the UK, where it has two technology campuses in Wiltshire, but manufactured in Asia.
Electric cars
Earlier this year, the company joined the fight to produce medical ventilators for the NHS, amid fears that the coronavirus would overwhelm it.
In March, the government ordered 10,000 fans for the company, though Sir James later told employees that they no longer needed them.
The company also tried to branch out to make electric cars.
But last year, he said that although his UK engineers had developed a “fantastic electric car,” it would not hit the road because it was not “commercially viable.”
Sir James, an entrepreneur who supports Brexit, launched his first vacuum cleaner in 1993. Previously, in 1974, he had invented a wheelbarrow that used a ball wheel.
