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.
The IT and technology company HP is to lay off 104 out of its currently 850 employees by the end of 2013. This is part of a larger restructuring programme by the HP group, which is to reduce its workforce by 29,000 out of 340,000 employees world-wide by the end of October 2014.
The group thus hopes to save EUR 3.5 billion in personnel costs annually from 2014 onwards. The job reduction will be a mixture of natural attrition and direct dismissals. Redundancy plans were created for the affected employees. A large part of the saved costs will be used to strengthen the company's innovation potential.
Eurofound (2012), HP, Internal restructuring in Austria, factsheet number 74233, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/74233.