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.
As announced on 7 February 2023, publisher Gruner + Jahr (G+J) will now begin cutting 700 jobs until 2025 due to internal restructuring. In this timeframe, the company's owner, Bertelsmann, intends to either shut down or sell 23 of its magazine titles. Managment plans to cut 500 jobs in administration – mainly in Hamburg. An additional 200 jobs will be cut due to the sale of magazine titles. Bertelsmann intends to focus on its core titles and will be investing €80 million in the publishing house Gruner + Jahr until 2025.
Trade union ver.di's National Executive Christoph Schmitz and the national chairman of the German Journalists' Association (DJV), Frank Überall, criticised that the decision to discontinue magazines was 'justified by nothing but unscrupulous profit maximization.'. 250 publishing employees demonstrated at Hamburg's Rathausmarkt against the plans.
Eurofound (2023), Gruner + Jahr, Internal restructuring in Germany, factsheet number 108400, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/108400.