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.
At the same time as British Gas announced 2,000 job losses, the company also announced it had recruited 2,500 frontline staff over the past year, with a net 2,000 more due to be taken on in 2005, including 600 to handle customer calls, 400 sales agents and 1,000 engineers.
British Gas said in June it had lost a net 445,000 customers so far in 2005 after raising retail gas prices by 12.4% last September 2004 and, with wholesale gas prices up 60% since February 2005, plans to raise prices again in the autumn. It claims to have reduced net customer losses to 10,000 a week compared with 22,000 earlier this year.
Eurofound (2005), British Gas, Business expansion in United Kingdom, factsheet number 61941, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/61941.