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 Japanese group Toshiba has announced a reorganisation that will lead to cut 7,000 positions out of a total workforce of 140,000 employees over five years. The job cuts represent 5% of its total workforce. In the UK, Toshiba will start shutting down NuGen, its UK nuclear power operation, early next year after failing to find a buyer. The decision to liquidate NuGen, however, would hnder Britain’s plans to build a nuclear plant that was meant to provide 7 percent of the country’s electricity. NuGen said 18 months of negotiations with a range of potential owners had failed to yield any deal, and that it was now up to the British government and the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority to determine the future of the Moorside site in Cumbria.
The company said its exit from different troubled businesses, along with the job cuts and other restructuring, will boost its profitability in the longer run. It forecasts an operating profit of 240 billion yen (€1.87 billion) in 2021 compared to 60 billion yen (€0.47 billion) in 2018. In 2015, the company cut 10,000 positions.
Eurofound (2018), Toshiba, Internal restructuring in World, factsheet number 96037, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/96037.