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.
KIKA/Leiner, an Austrian furniture chain, has announced plans to outsource part of its logistics branch, located in Vienna and Vösendorf (Eastern Austria), to JCL Logistics Austria.
The outsourcing is connected to the insolvency of KIKA/Leiner, and is set to take place in March 2024. As a result, 67 of a total of 431 employees (about 15 percent or every 6th employee) in logistics will be dismissed. Some of these employees might be taken on by the logistics company JCL.
Shortly after the real estate group Signa sold the operational Kika/Leiner business to the Austrian retail manager and investor Hermann Wieser, the furniture chain filed for insolvency in mid-June 2023. The furniture store properties were purchased by the Graz-based Supernova Group. As part of the insolvency proceedings, a total of 23 of the 40 shops were closed at the end of July and over 1,600 jobs were cut.
Eurofound (2024), Kika/Leiner, Outsourcing in Austria, factsheet number 200780, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/200780.