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.
Petroleum services company Aker solutions is restructuring and will cut 175 jobs in Stavanger, on top of ongoing staff reductions affecting 400 employees. Aker Solutions is a global provider of products, systems and services to the oil and gas industry. It has 28 000 employees worldwide, 8 500 of which work with subsea and field design in Norway.
Over the past few months, Aker Solutions has announced restructuring in several parts of the company, mostly related to a significant decline in the market for maintenance, modifications and operations (MMO). The latets cuts are mainly due to the postponement of subsea development on the Zidane oil field. Aker Solutions has calculated that it had more than 500 redundant MMO-employees, but seeks to keep as many as possible employed in other parts of the company. Both the 175 positions in Stavanger and 80-100 positions in Bergen which will be cut are in the MMO-segment. Before the latest announced cuts of 175 jobs, 400 employees in Stavanger, Bergen, Ålesund, Trondheim and Kristiansund have been offered the possibility to be transferred to recruitment agency Aker Advantage, which seeks to find new employment within or outside of Aker Solutions. Most of them have accepted. Aker Advantage may also seek solutions for the 175 now affected in Stavanger.
The company does not exclude further capacity adjustments in the near future, but consider the long term prospects to be relatively promising.
Eurofound (2014), Aker Solutions, Internal restructuring in Norway, factsheet number 77599, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/77599.