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.
In Finland, Normet Group, a provider of advanced solutions for selected customer processes in underground mining and tunnelling, has concluded its employer-employee negotiations and decided to cut 130 jobs worldwide. The group is active in Finland, Sweden and Chile. A total of 25 white-collar workers will be made redundant in Iisalmi (Finland). In addition, the Group will lay off 40 workers temporarily and is negotiating to outsource six white-collar workers. The need for reductions was initially estimated at 80 jobs in Iisalmi. At the personnel's request, redundancies were converted to temporary lay-offs. Managing Director of Normet, Timo Rask, expects the year 2016 to be difficult. The mining industry has been in a downhill slide for a long time. It can be estimated that job cuts in other countries will affect about 60 employees (130-71).
Eurofound (2015), Normet, Internal restructuring in European Union, factsheet number 86029, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/86029.