Eurofound's ERM database on restructuring-related legal regulations provides
information on regulations in the Member States of the European Union and Norway
which are explicitly or implicitly linked to anticipating and managing change.
Italy: Algorithmic management
Phase
Legislative Decree 104 of 2022, Implementation of Directive (EU) 2019/1152 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 June 2019 on transparent and predictable working conditions in the European Union; Legislative Decree 48 of 2023 Urgent measures for social inclusion and access to employment
Native name
Decreto Legislativo 104 del 2022, "Attuazione della direttiva (UE) 2019/1152 del Parlamento europeo e del Consiglio del 20 giugno 2019, relativa a condizioni di lavoro trasparenti e prevedibili nell'Unione europea"
Decreto Legislativo 48 del 2023 "Misure urgenti per l'inclusione sociale e l'accesso al lavoro".
Type
Algorithmic management
Added to database
29 January 2024
Article
Legislative Decree of 27 June 2022, n.104
Legislative Decree 48 of 2023
Description
LAST UPDATE 2023 - THIS CONTENT WILL NOT BE UPDATED
The Legislative Decree No. 104 of June 27, 2022, aligns Italian law with the EU directive on transparent and predictable working conditions. This decree broadly addresses various employment conditions, including its implications for automated decision-making and algorithmic management. The decree mandates that employers must be transparent about the use of automated systems and algorithms that affect workers' roles and decisions concerning their employment. This includes ensuring that employees understand how such technologies might influence their work environment and the terms of their employment.
Before employment begins, employers should detail:
Which job aspects these systems affect.
The systems' purpose, logic, and function.
Data used, including performance evaluation mechanisms.
Automated decision measures, data security, and EU Regulation 2016/679 compliance measures.
Workers can access and request more information on this data, with a 30-day response time from employers. Any changes impacting work conditions based on this data must be communicated to workers 24 hours in advance. Information should be transparently and digitally shared with workers and union representatives. The Ministry of Labor and other relevant bodies can request this information.
Subsequently, Legislative Decree 48 of 2023, brought some changes to the decree 104/2022, especially with regard to automated systems and algorithmic management: the employer's obligation to inform applies only when these systems are entirely automated and are significant in making decisions regarding employment matters.
Commentary
The CGIL (Italian General Confederation of Labour) has voiced strong opposition to recent amendments in the labor decree concerning transparency in the use of automated decision-making systems. The union criticizes the revisions for narrowing the scope of mandatory employer disclosures to only fully automated systems, excluding systems protected by industrial or commercial secrets. This change, according to the CGIL, is a significant step back from the advancements made by the transparency decree and the European Directive on transparent and predictable working conditions. The union believes that these revisions weaken the workers' right to transparency in algorithmic systems, potentially leaving workers and their representatives without essential tools to enforce their rights, especially in a landscape where the use of algorithmic systems is becoming increasingly prevalent.
Additional metadata
Cost covered by
Employer
Involved actors other than national government
National government
Involvement (others)
None
Thresholds
Affected employees: No, applicable in all circumstances Company size: No, applicable in all circumstances Additional information: No, applicable in all circumstances
This Eurofound research paper explores key trends in restructuring in recent years, highlighting the companies that announced the largest job losses and job gains in the EU. It builds on an analysis of company announcements recorded in Eurofound’s European Restructuring Monitor (ERM), alongside a new classification of restructuring events involving changes in company location.
Employers increasingly use tools such as email, SMS and messaging apps like WhatsApp or Signal to communicate with employees. While these technologies offer both efficiency and convenience, their use in communicating sensitive information, particularly for notifying employees of dismissal, raises legal concerns. This article explores the legal framework on dismissals across the EU, with a special focus on the use of digital means for communicating employment dismissals. Drawing on examples from various Member States, it examines the legal validity of digital dismissals.
In 2023, thousands of workers in big tech lost their jobs. Meta, Amazon, Google, Apple, Microsoft and Salesforce had been considered to offer good and secure jobs up to this point. Giants of the information and communication technology (ICT) sector, these companies are among the highest paying, with Eurostat data from 2022 indicating that workers in ICT had the second-highest median gross hourly earnings (surpassed only by earnings in the financial sector).[1] These layoffs were a shock, especially as the biggest companies had hired extensively during the COVID-19 pandemic. What happened in the two years after this redundancy wave – was that the end of the cuts or did the companies start expanding again?
In 2024, the automotive sector in the EU came to the fore in public and policy discussions. The focus was on the slowdown in electric vehicle (EV) sales, rising global competition, belated investments in new technologies, and the potential closure of production lines in Europe. A number of European car manufacturers and suppliers announced their intention to make large-scale redundancies and change long-standing collective agreements on job security and wages, while workers raised concerns amid demonstrations and industrial action.