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.
The Social Insurance Institution of Finland, Kela, is hiring 100 new employees to administer anew 'active unemployment' policy measure. The recruitment process has already started for around half of the new jobs.
The active unemployment model passed in Parliament in December 2017 and was implemented in January 2018. The model comprises deductible unemployment benefit days and lowered unemployment benefit if, within a period of three months, unemployed person has not sufficiently engaged in paid employment, profitable entrepreneurial activity, or active public employment service (PES) measures. In some cases, unemployed will need to report on PES activities to Kela, which is why Kela needs more resources to administer cases.
In February 2017, Kela's basic social assistance service got seriously congested when the office took over the income support administration from municipalities. On that occasion, Kela increased its number of employees by over 1,000.
Eurofound (2018), The Social Insurance Institution of Finland, Business expansion in Finland, factsheet number 93147, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/93147.