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.
German engineering company Lapple has announced that it is to close its Carlow factory after 33 years with the loss of 140 jobs. In a statement the company, a manufacturer of car components, said it had incurred in heavy losses in recent years and blamed "the increasing competitive and cost pressures that are affecting Ireland's manufacturing sector".
Lapple Ireland was founded in 1974 as a subsidiary of August Lapple, a family-owned German company that employs about 4,000 people worldwide and manufactures components for leading car manufacturers in Europe, Asia and the United States. At its peak in 1992, the Carlow factory employed 325 people, but that number gradually declined as the company struggled with rising costs.
Eurofound (2007), Lapple, Closure in Ireland, factsheet number 65505, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/65505.