dataset <- structure(list(Event = structure(2:5, .Label = c("Event", "Labour Costs YoY", 
    "Unemployment Change (000's)", "Unemployment Rate", "Jobseekers Net Change"), 
   .Names = c("", "", "", ""), class = "factor"), var1 = c("13.34m", "$16.91b", "-£1125.91m", "¥1012.74b"), var2 = c(0.026, -0.449, "0.89k", "9.56m")), row.names = c(NA, 
   -4L), class = c("tbl_df", "tbl", "data.frame"))
gsub("[^-0-9.,]", "", dataset$var1)
##  => [1] "13.34"    "16.91"    "-1125.91" "1012.74"