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.
On 21 September 2012, the management of Orange announced its employment forecast for 2013-2015 with an estimated 5,000 job losses.
On one hand, the company expects to recruit around 4,000 employees on permanent contracts between 2013 and 2015. At the same time, 9,000 employees will leave the company through natural attrition. As a result, the workforce will decrease by 5,000 employees. According to the management, the staff decrease through retirement allows the company to adapt its workforce to the sharp competition within the sector since the arrival of a new low cost competitor, Free. Other mobile telephony operators as Bouygues (see here) and SFR (see here) have also announced job cuts.
Eurofound (2012), Orange, Internal restructuring in France, factsheet number 74427, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/74427.