The restructuring events database contains factsheets with data on large-scale restructuring events reported in the principal national media and company websites in each EU Member State. This database was created in 2002.
Against the background of dropping numbers of fixed-network telephony users, the partially state-owned Telekom Austria decided – at a supervisory board meeting held on 10 November 2008 – to cut its workforce in its fixed-network telephony segment by 1,250 employees by the end of 2009. Moreover, up to 2011, additional 1,500 workers are planned to be made redundant. For the 1,250 employees affected in a first phase, management and the works council agreed on a social plan, providing for further training measures and job placement activities. Initially, management expected only about 400 of the affected 1,250 employees to accept the social plan (and thus the dismissal). However, staff reduction at Telekom Austria was going at a quicker pace than expected, said the company's CEO Hannes Ametsreiter on 23 October 2009 in Vienna. By this day, 520 employees decided to leave. Since most of the Telekom Austria staff are public-service employees, which enjoy protection against dismissal, they cannot be fired like private-law employees. Therefore, the majority of these employees will be discharged from work obligations but will continue to be paid (at a slightly lower pay level). The responsible trade union and the company’s works council have repeatedly protested against these measures. Currently, the Telekom Austria employs some 11,000 workers in Austria, most of them still in the fixed-network business segment.
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 retail banking sector is fertile ground for studying the impacts of digitalisation on work and employment. Financial services are increasingly provided online, without the intermediary of customer-facing institutions.
European labour markets have recovered strongly from COVID-19. By the end of 2021, little more than 18 months after the start of the pandemic, employment rates in the EU were almost at pre-crisis levels.
