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.
Repo Vabrikud, the manufacturer of particle boards, has announced the reduction of 14% (40) jobs out of 290 in their factory due to the need to adapt to lower production volumes in the current economic situation. Repo Vabrikud is owned by the Swiss company Sorbes. The dismissals are due to take place from August to October 2009.
The company manager, Mr Tiit Kolk, has commented in the media that the dismissals were undertaken as the factory is not working at its full capacity. Moreover, this situation is forecasted to stay so for at least another year. In this situation, the company aims at maintaining jobs for the rest of the 250 workers that remain in the factory. The company manager did not comment on which groups of workers will be affected the most by the restructuring.
The redundancies will take place despite the news from July that the company has started exporting new products to the market of China. For this, the company received exporting support from Enterprise Estonia. The company has commented that entering the market of China is time consuming and requires lots of resources and thus this might take more time. The company also aims at widening export to the Middle-East and Northern-Africa.
Eurofound (2009), Repo Vabrikud, Internal restructuring in Estonia, factsheet number 69341, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/69341.