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.
Construction group Kier has announced plans to cut 1,200 jobs following a profit warning two weeks previously. Therefore, 650 staff are expected to leave the business by the end of June 2019, with the further 550 jobs expected to be cut in 2020.
Share prices fell by nearly one-quarter on the announcement of the profit warning. The company, which employs around 19,000 staff across the UK, stated that it needs to make savings of GBP 55 million (€61.68 million) per year by 2021, and these job cuts form part of that cost-cutting drive. The company is also suspending dividend payments to shareholders in a bid to reduce its debts.
Eurofound (2019), Kier, Internal restructuring in United Kingdom, factsheet number 97970, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/97970.