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.
German technology group Körber has announced plans to cut 800 jobs wordwide in its cigarette machinery unit. It is foreseen that around a third of the job losses will take place in international locations, with the remaining job cuts concentrated in Germany. In Germany, it is expected that the job reductions will affect 500 workers at the plant in Hamburg-Bergedorf and around 100 at the plant in Schwarzenbek. The company said that this measure was due to the decreasing cigarette consumption worldwide and the enforcement of increasingly strong regulation in the sector, including in strategically important markets such as China and Latin America. The final scope and the timescale for announced job reductions will be agreed in the pending negotiations between the company and the employee representatives. The company currently employs 12,000 people worldwide, 4,600 of them in its tobacco division.
Eurofound (2015), Körber, Internal restructuring in World, factsheet number 83734, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/83734.