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.
Up to 90 staff at directory enquiries company Conduit Ireland are set to lose their jobs as their work is outsourced to the Philippines. It has been reported in the Irish Independent newspaper that about 80 directory enquiries staff at 11850 will be let go while almost the entire media sales team will be made redundant as the company transfers more of its operations to Manila in the Philippines. It is understood that employees in the Philippines already deal with all calls received between 10pm and 7am and at weekends.
Conduit Ireland once employed more than 1,000 people in its Dublin call centre, but staff numbers have since fallen to approximately one-third of this figure.
Eurofound (2009), Conduit Ireland, Offshoring/Delocalisation in Ireland, factsheet number 68904, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/68904.