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.
Akrom Akal, a Romanian company based in Suceava (Nord-Est region), which entered the market in 2000 following a $20 million investment of AK-AL group from Turkey, announced that it is downsizing, as losses registered over the past months continue to accrue. The company produces finished yarns 100% acrylic and acrylic blends with wool, cotton, viscose along with different fancy fibres.
The management has explained that the company has no debts currently but is faced with serious difficulties following rising prices in electricity, gas and utilities, depreciation of the euro and the dollar against the leu and the competition of similar products from China, which are no longer subject to contingency measures in the European Union starting in 2005.
Akrom Akal director declared he has great faith in the skilled, high productivity workforce of Romania, but current prices have become prohibitive. Of the 950 employees, just a few more than 300 will remain with the company while the factory manager does not exclude the possibility of re-hiring laid-off employees in the future, given a change in market conditions.
Eurofound (2005), Akrom Akal, Internal restructuring in Romania, factsheet number 61437, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/61437.