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.
J&R Enterprises, Romania’s largest clothing manufacturer and owner of the Seroussi brand, is planning to reduce its exports in 2005 after the fall of the euro and will place a stronger emphasis on domestic sales.
‘More than 95% of the output of our factories is contract work and is exported. This is why the recent appreciation of the leu is a problem for us and we are thinking of drastically cutting exports’, Joseph Seroussi, the company’s main shareholder said.
The euro has lost 10% against the leu in 2005, after falling by 3.6% last year, which has affected all exporters. At the same time, domestic prices have risen, especially for utilities.
The difficulties the company has faced lately forced it to lay-off some 600 people. J&R Enterprises has five facilities in Romania which together employ more than 8,000 people. Total investment in these factories since 1990 has exceeded €105 million, company data show.
The turnover J&R Enterprises generated through contract work amounted to €90 million in 2004. ‘We hope to see similar revenues this year’, Seroussi added.
Eurofound (2005), J&R Enterprises, Internal restructuring in Romania, factsheet number 62211, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/62211.