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.
![img text](https://www.eurofound.europa.eu/sites/default/files/2022-05/ef22038_3.png)
350 workers at NEC, an electronics devices plant, in County Meath, became the latest victims of the trend in Ireland which has seen traditional manufacturing companies move production to lower-cost economies. Some 300 full-time and 50 part-time employees are to lose their jobs at NEC Semiconductors when it closes at the end of September 2006. Management of the Japanese-owned plant said it was to cease production as part of a group consolidation exercise, which will result in jobs being switched to Singapore, Malaysia and China. The switch will enable the company to hire general operatives at a quarter of the cost of Irish workers, reducing labour costs by 75%.
Eurofound (2006), NEC Semiconductors, Offshoring/Delocalisation in Ireland, factsheet number 62975, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/62975.