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.
Friends Provident, a UK firm that operates in the insurance sector, has announced that it is to cut 600 jobs. It has not been announced by the firm where the job cuts will be implemented as of February 2008, but it seems highly likely that the majority of the job cuts will be implemented in the UK where the firm employs 4,000 at locations in Manchester, Exeter, Dorking and Salisbury. The job losses will be implemented by 2009, and have been attributed by management at the firm to financial difficulties the firm has faced. The job cuts are part of a wider process of streamlining, and follow the firm reporting a 400 million GBP decline in its annual profits. Trade union Unite condemned the job cuts, and stated that it would oppose any compulsory redundancies.
Eurofound (2008), Friends Provident, Internal restructuring in United Kingdom, factsheet number 66266, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/66266.