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.
Swedish multinational Ericsson, leader in the provision of IT products and services, announced up to 400 dismissals in its Italian sites of Genoa, Assago (Milan), Moncalieri (Turin), Naples, Pagani (Salerno), Rome and Venice.
The job cuts have been attributed to a structural reduction of clients and sales in the Italian market, as well as to the overall pressure on costs due to increasingly price-based competition in the sector.
The cuts will affect clerical staff and, to a lesser extent, managers.
Unions complain that the corporation has no plan for its Italian branches, as it drastically reduced its workforce over the last ten years, especially at the Genoa site.
According to sources, the job cuts include as well a share of the 332 redundancies disclosed last year (EricssonIT-2016), which the company is implementing mainly on a voluntary basis after the collective dismissal procedure was concluded without an agreement being reached.
Update 21/07/2017: Following the failure of negotiations implemented in the framework of the collective dismissal procedure, Ericsson can lawfully implement dismissals up to the precise number communicated for opening the procedure (315). On 21 July, the company already sent out notification of dismissals to 181 workers currently employed in Rome and Genoa.
Eurofound (2017), Ericsson, Internal restructuring in Italy, factsheet number 90715, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/90715.