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.
Lohr Industrie (740 employees), French manufacturer and designer of truck trailers, trolleys on wheels and rail transport systems, announced that it is to cut between 150 and 200 jobs out of a total of 600 employees at its site of Duppigheim.
After 98 redundancies in 2008 (see Factsheet) and 150 job cuts in 2010 (see Factsheet), the works council was informed about a new reorganisation plan.
The management explained its decision with the collapse of car-trailer sales, which has been amplified by the economic crisis. Before 2008, Lohr Industrie sold 2,000 car-trailers per year, but only 350 last year and expects to sell 400 in 2012.
UPDATED: On 6 September, the management has presented a employment safeguard plan envisaging to cut 168 positions.
Eurofound (2012), Lohr Industrie, Internal restructuring in France, factsheet number 74054, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/74054.