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 insurance company SPB Group has announced a reorganisation with 121 job cuts in France by the end of 2020 on a total workforce of 600 employees spread over seven sites. SPB is an European leader in insurance for major brands (Auchan, BNP, Carrefour, Darty, Leclerc, Fnac, Micromania, LCL, Orange, SFR). The reorganisation concerns 68 people at Le Havre, where the group has its head office, as well as a dozen employees in Bezons (Val d'Oise) and Paris, but also the closure of the Alençon site where 51 people work, including ten on fixed-term contracts. The company was growing, but the crisis at COVID-19 and the shutdown of the economy during the three months of containment caused contracts to fall by 80% and the forecasts for the coming months and years are not good. The CEO is counting on a 15 to 20% drop in turnover for the year 2020. In 2019, the company recorded €200 million in turnover, so it is projecting a loss of €30 million at the end of the year. At the European level, out of the 1,800 employees of the SPB group, 230 jobs will be lost before the end of 2020. Up to 109 positions will be cut at its foreign sites, notably in the UK, Spain and Poland.
Several former expansion were recorded in the ERM Database in 2015 (150 job creations), in 2013 (150 job creations in France and 300 job creations in Europe) and 160 job creations worldwide in 2008.
Eurofound (2020), SPB (Société de Prévoyance Bancaire), Internal restructuring in France, factsheet number 100904, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/100904.