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.
The US-based pharmaceutical company Pfizer announced on 23 January 2007 its plans to cut a total of 760 jobs of its 5,200 jobs in Germany. 320 jobs will be cut in the German headquarter in Karlsruhe an another 440 jobs will be affected by the planned sale of the company's subsidiary Arzneimittelwerk Heumann PCS in Nuremberg. Other sites of Pfizer in Germany will not be affected by job cutting measures. Pfizer is reported to face substantial reductions in overall turnover and profits as a number of its products are to lose their patent protection in the forthcoming years. The company wants to save 5 billion USD in costs world-wide and is said to cut a total of 10,000 jobs.
Eurofound (2007), Pfizer, Internal restructuring in Germany, factsheet number 64836, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/64836.