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.
On 31 October 2006, a member of the Board of Directors announced that, after a reorganisation costing 13,000 jobs worldwide in the past three years, yet another one will take place at ABN Amro. At the end of 2005, ABN Amro employed 97,000 people worldwide. According to the announcement, 500 out of 4,500 jobs will be lost at the head office of ABN Amro in Amsterdam. The chairman of the Board, Rijkman Groenink, blamed decreasing profits as the main reason for this decision. In this sense, due to increasing growing bonuses and higher provisions for loans in Asia and Italy, expenses in 2006 have risen more rapidly than incomes. The jobs will be lost at the risk-control and IT-departments. Most of the jobs at the IT department will be transferred to India, whereas the jobs at the risk-control department will be cut. Direct dismissals cannot be ruled out. Agreements with the unions about redundancy payments have already been made. According to Huibert Bouwmeester, member of the Board of Directors, these dismissals are a logical result of the simplification of the structure of the organisation of ABN Amro in recent years. According to Bouwmeester the cost savings, planned in 2007, are necessary to invest in the growth of the bank. Bearing in mind the announcement of 650 job cuts in May 2006, ABN Amro has announced the loss of 1,150 jobs to offshoring in The Netherlands in 2006.
Eurofound (2006), ABN Amro, Offshoring/Delocalisation in Netherlands, factsheet number 64350, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/64350.