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.
ING Bank has announced that it is cutting 185 jobs and envisages the closure of up to 50 bank branches in Belgium. The company estimates that branch transactions have declined by almost a half (48%) in the last four years as customers have increasingly turned to online banking. Many of the cuts will come in the group's IT division, including the offshoring of important control room activities (128 jobs) to Katowice in Poland. Another 51 jobs, in operational and customer services, will also be moved to lower-wage countries - Slovakia (Bratislava) and the Philippines (Manila). Finally, some modest job cuts are foreseen in the complaints departments (6 jobs).
Eurofound (2015), ING Bank, Offshoring/Delocalisation in Belgium, factsheet number 85988, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/85988.