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.
Zumtobel, a worldwide leading supplier of integral lighting systems, headquartered in Dornbirn (Austria) is to cut 850 jobs within the next two and a half years, affecting sites all over the world. It is planned to dismiss 425 of the 850 employees by the end of 2008.
The dismissals are due to a significant decline in both turnover and yields in the first half of the business year 2008/9 with no prospect of improvement. Management claimed that increasing labour costs, high costs for the development of LED-activities and negative currency exchange rates have been the main factors for declining profits. In order to be able to flexibly react to falls in demand within the next years, Zumtobel aims to save some € 50 million on labour costs, by reducing its overall workforce from currently 7,500 to around 6,650 by mid-2011.
Eurofound (2008), Zumtobel, Internal restructuring in World, factsheet number 67641, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/67641.