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.
The German media company ProSiebenSat.1, based in Unterföhring (Germany), has announced 400 job cuts. The company is struggling with falling advertising revenues and is increasingly focusing on its streaming offering, after having acquired the streaming platform Joyn by 31 October 2022. According to the company, the job cuts will affect around 400 full-time positions and will be carried out in a socially responsible manner via a voluntary redundancy programme to avoid compulsory redundancies as far as possible. The company had agreed on this in talks with employee representatives. It is not known at this time by when the job cuts will be completed. However, the company says that the first effects of the reduced material and personnel costs will be visible across the Group in the fourth quarter of this year. ProSiebenSat.1 Group employs 7,284 full-time staff worldwide.
Eurofound (2023), ProSiebenSat.1 Media, Internal restructuring in Germany, factsheet number 109319, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/109319.