Foster + Partners Plans to Lay-off Staff on Account of Construction Uncertainty Following Brexit
Following the summer’s 2016’s Brexit vote aftermath, renowned British architecture firm Foster + Partners decided to dismiss about 100 of its employees. The firm behind the designs of multiple landmarks in London such as; 30 St. Mary Axe, London City Hall, and the millennium bridge, to name a few, has revealed that the decision would affect a “cross-section” of its workforce, from administrators to architects, especially the firm’s headquarters in Battersea, London.
“Foster + Partners has grown significantly over the last two years with a record number of projects, many of which are now close to completion,” said a representative of the firm in a released statement. “This, coupled with some uncertainty in the construction market, has led us to make some adjustments to our practice, which regrettably includes some redundancies enabling us to balance numbers with our current and foreseeable workload.”
According to the firm’s latest accounts, 1,500 staff members were employed worldwide in the year prior to the 30th of April 2016; 1,265 of staff were hired by the firm’s London offices. The last time the firm had experienced large-scale redundancy was during the financial crisis in 2009, when they had to lay off 300 employees globally, and close their offices in Berlin and Istanbul.
In the meantime, Foster + Partners is currently working on the Apple headquarters all over the world, Jeddah Metro, and the Hudson Yards in New York. They have also settled deals to design major projects like the Lusail Stadium for the 2022 Football World Cup in Qatar and the Maspero Triangle district in Cairo. While locally, they have been assigned the design of three waterfront bridges in Ipswich. They are also the finalists in competitions to design the UK Holocaust memorial and to renovate the House of Parliament.
