Employees

Our employees are key to our success: their skills, commitment and motivation make BASF competitive and fit for the future. For this reason, we want to recruit, support and retain the best employees. We do this, for example, with performance-based remuneration, targeted further training opportunities and measures to balance work and family life. We place emphasis on diversity in our teams to reflect the various backgrounds and meet the needs of our business partners.

Challenges in 2009

Company management, employee representatives and employees worked together in a spirit of partnership to cope with the economic crisis in 2009. We were able to limit the impact of the crisis on our core workforce as much as possible. We limited short-time working in Europe by using a variety of measures such as temporary personnel transfers. In addition, by making use of our flexible personnel systems for working time and variable remuneration as well as keeping strict cost discipline, we were able to achieve two core goals: extensive job security and cost reduction. Nevertheless, we were unfortunately unable to completely avoid staff downsizing in 2009. Our employees worldwide had access to information about the company’s current situation and the steps necessary as part of our crisis management. Despite the difficult environment, BASF invested in long-term issues such as demographic change and further training. Moreover, the integration of Ciba proceeded more quickly than planned.
For more information, see workforce flexibility during the crisis

Employees worldwide

At the end of 2009, BASF had 104,779 employees, of whom 2,401 were apprentices and trainees. In addition, more than 19,500 employees from other companies were contracted to provide technical and other services at our sites. Worldwide, the percentage of employees who left the company during their first three years of employment was on average 1.1%. This turnover rate varies from region to region.

Employees’ ideas create value

Our employees around the world make an important contribution to value with their suggestions for improvements. In 2009, one focus was on ideas relating to energy and material efficiency. Around 54,500 suggestions for improvements were submitted during the year. In 2009, we implemented approximately 32,700 suggestions, leading to an overall benefit of about €41.5 million.

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Number of employees by region (as of December 31, 2009)
	2009	% 2009	% 2008
Europe	67,621	64.5	63.9
Thereof Germany	48,586	46.4	48.9
Thereof BASF SE	32,870	31.4	33.9
North America	15,945	15.2	15.6
Asia Pacific	14,817	14.2	14.2
South America, Africa, Middle East	6,396	6.1	6.3
	104,779	100.0	100.0