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.
Education publisher Pearson has announced plans to cut 4,000 jobs worldwide. The company employs 5,000 people in the UK and around 500 jobs are expected to be cut from the UK operations. The company statement attributed the need to cut costs to lower volume of enrolments in the USA and to education policy shifts in the UK. Following the news of the restructure the company's share price rose by 9%, though Pearson cautioned that it expected profits to be lower for the coming year. The timescale for the job cuts has not been announced definitively, though reports suggest that the bulk of the cuts will have happened by the middle of the year.
Eurofound (2016), Pearson, Internal restructuring in United Kingdom, factsheet number 86253, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/86253.