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 American pharmaceutical multinational Pfizer is to cut 100 jobs at its manufacturing plant in Newbridge, Kildare.
The job losses are part of the company’s global cost cutting and restructuring process which is being carried out against the background of a drop in demand for Covid-19 vaccines and treatments. Pfizer’s Paxlovid anti-viral treatment is manufactured into tablets at the Newbridge plant. A consultation process with staff and trade unions has begun.
Pfizer currently employs approximately 5,000 people in Ireland across a number of sites and locations. 1,200 employees work at the Newbridge site. The recent global restructuring event of Pfizer has been recorded in the ERM events database Pfizer-2023-WO.
Eurofound (2023), Pfizer, Internal restructuring in Ireland, factsheet number 200490, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/200490.