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.
Unicredit bank announced 5,500 redundancies in Italy and the closure of around 450 branches.
The announced redundancies are part of the company's broader 2019-2023 industrial plan, which will be strongly focused on containing costs, especially labour costs, and maximising shareholder value. Overall, the company plans to reduce its workforce by 8,000 and the redundancies will be mostly concentrated in Germany, Austria and Italy.
The company argued it will act in a socially responsible way, but the trade unions deemed the plan as completely unacceptable.
In 2017 the bank cut 2,600 jobs in the form of incentivised exits, to be implemented by the end of June 2024.
Eurofound (2019), Unicredit, Internal restructuring in Italy, factsheet number 99248, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/99248.