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.
Car manufacturer Ford has outlined plans to cut jobs across Europe as part of a bid to restore profitability. According to reports around 1,000 of the projected 1,150 losses will be from the plant at Bridgend, South Wales. Papers reveal that there are plans to cut 370 jobs during 2019 and that the firm will seek to achieve these reductions through voluntary redundancies. A further 620 jobs will be lost by September 2020; 450 jobs are associated with production of engines for Jaguar Land Rover and 170 jobs will be lost due to decline in demand for Ford's own Sigma engine. In addition to the cuts at Bridgend, there will also be reductions in the company's transport operations. The timeframe for these cuts has not been reported.
Eurofound (2019), Ford, Internal restructuring in United Kingdom, factsheet number 96587, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/96587.