Ethics in the digital workplace
Digitisation and automation technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI), can affect working conditions in a variety of ways and their use in the workplace raises a host of new ethical concerns.
Lifebrain, a laboratory that currently provides COVID-19 tests in Vienna, has registered the dismissal of 1,200 employees at the local employment office. The company analyses PCR-tests for COVID-19 infections and their lay out might be due to the fact that the costs were covered by the state until now, since the free tests were heavily used by citizens. However, recently the Austrian minister of finance decided to limit the free testing to vulnerable groups and the care sector.
Update 28/3/2022: Lifebrain has decided to keep the employees for now. The company counts on another increase of testing in autmn and will try to keep its current staff all through the summer.
Update 22/4/2022: Lifebrain announced in a broadcast on the 22 April 2022 that it has decided to lay off 509 employees. The reason for this is the reduced number of COVID-19 tests.
Eurofound (2022), Lifebrain, Internal restructuring in Austria, factsheet number 106456, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/106456.