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.
E.On, a multi-national group that operates in the energy sector, has announced that it is to cut 194 jobs at its site in Coventry in the West Midlands. Approximately 1,000 are employed at the Coventry site, and the jobs will be ‘offshored’ to a location that the group operates in Germany. Prospect, a trade union that represents energy workers, has stated that the majority of those jobs that will be lost will be highly skilled. Representatives from E.On have stated that those workers not wishing to move to Germany would be found jobs elsewhere within the UK. As of March 2008 there is no information on when the job losses will be implemented by. E.On employs approximately 80,000 internationally.
Eurofound (2008), E.On, Offshoring/Delocalisation in United Kingdom, factsheet number 66415, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/66415.