In the face of Artificial Intelligence: Italy keeps the Human in HR Management

In recent months a great concern has evolved as the news media regularly reports on mass redundancies being made by multi-nationals as they seek to reduce their workforces in a very short time frame (hundreds of thousands of employees worldwide have recently lost their jobs due to mass redundancies).  Of particular note is the Artificial Intelligence systems being used by some of the US headquartered Big Tech companies such as Meta, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Twitter and Netflix among others to identify business units and employees for redundancy processes.

In Europe, this news was also closely followed by the decision of a well-known Swedish fashion company to use Artificial Intelligence to manage the preliminary phase of the redundancy plan impacting its Business Tech division.  It was required, just like many of the multinational Big Techs, by the need to overhaul its organizational structure - most likely due to an overall rethink of their workplace model and use of office space in this current post-pandemic period. In this specific case the Swedish group subjected their employees (estimated at around 1,500 people according to public sources) to intelligence test(s) - in order to provide managers with evaluation parameters for deciding which staff members would be included in the programmed redundancy plan.

Would this be legal in Italy?

No. By l...