Singapore – Multinational company Dyson has laid off several employees in its main headquarters at Singapore, and follows a recent job cut by the company involving 1,000 employees in Britain.
Dyson has confirmed the news to MARKETECH APAC when reached out to.
“We constantly evolve the composition of our teams and take steps to ensure we have the right skills in the right places. Our ambitions in Singapore remain unchanged, and we anticipate that we will continue to grow here in the medium term,” a company spokesperson told MARKETECH APAC.
Dyson didn’t comment further on the number of employees affected by the layoffs, or which departments the employees are from.
The layoffs are done despite the local employee headcount growing to 35% by 2023, and is expected that Dyson’s total footprint in Singapore will grow in the medium term. Moreover, Singapore–being the company’s headquarters–sits at the centre of Dyson’s research and advanced manufacturing ecosystem.
Following this update, the United Workers of Electronics and Electrical Industries (UWEEI) has expressed disappointment with the company’s one-day notice regarding the retrenchment exercise. For Patrick Tay, executive secretary at UWEEI, this left insufficient time for meaningful discussion between both parties. The union has since then escalated the matter to the Ministry of Manpower.
“The union understands that the affected workers fall outside its scope of representation under the Collective Agreement with Dyson. Nonetheless, UWEEI stands ready to support affected workers,” Tay said in a media statement sent over to MARKETECH APAC.
With this, UWEEI is teaming up with NTUC’s e2i (Employment and Employability Institute) to assist affected workers for new employment opportunities, job matching, and will support them with career coaching and job training, where needed.
UWEEI members may also tap on the Union Training Assistance Programme (UTAP) fund to offset training courses should they require skills upgrading. It will also assist members who may face financial hardship via their various assistance programmes.
The union has also reminded companies to observe the guiding principles outlined in NTUC’s Fair Retrenchment Framework (as of 24 July 2020) and the Tripartite Advisory on Managing Excess Manpower and Responsible Retrenchment, and are necessary to ensure that a fair and balanced retrenchment exercise has been undertaken by companies.
“Unionised companies should work with their unions in a timely manner to ensure that a fair and equitable process is carried out to safeguard the interests of all workers, especially our Singaporean core,” Tay added.
