Deutsche Post Annual Report 2008 - 14 Staff costs/employees

14 Staff costs/employees


€m
	2007 restated¹⁾	2008
Wages, salaries and compensation	14,138	14,104
of which expenses for options under the stock option plans	14	4
of which expenses for SAR under the stock option plans	2	0
of which expenses from 2006 SAR Plan/LTIP	21	0
Social security contributions	2,150	2,382
Retirement benefit expenses	881	1,504
Staff costs	17,169	17,990

Staff costs include expenses of €959 million relating to restructuring and reorganisation measures within the Group.

Retirement benefit expenses include €557 million (previous year: €560 million) relating to contributions by Deutsche Post AG to Bundes-Pensions-Service für Post und Telekommunikation e. V. Further details can be found in Note 7.

Staff costs relate mainly to wages, salaries and compensation, as well as all other benefits paid to employees of the Group for their services in the year under review. Social security contributions relate in particular to statutory social security contributions paid by employers.

Retirement benefit expenses relate to current and former employees or their surviving dependants. These expenses consist of additions to pension provisions, employer contributions to supplementary occupational pension plans and retirement benefit payments by employers for their employees. The increase is mainly attributable to the obligations assumed as part of the restructuring measures in the USA in relation to compensation payments.

The average number of the Group’s employees in the year under review, classified by employee group, was as follows:



	2007	2008
Hourly workers and salaried employees Deutsche Postbank Group: 15,459 (previous year: 15,578)	443,584	456,149
Civil servants Deutsche Postbank Group: 8,028 (previous year: 8,363)	52,809	51,304
Trainees Deutsche Postbank Group: 673 (previous year: 610)	3,859	3,839
Employees	500,252	511,292

The number of full-time equivalents as at 31 December 2008 was 451,515 employees; 21,127 employees of the Deutsche Postbank Group must be added to this (31 December 2007: 453,626 employees plus 21,474 employees of the Deutsche Postbank Group). The employees of companies acquired or disposed of during the year under review were included ratably. The number of employees of consolidated joint ventures amounted to 1,709 on a proportionate basis (previous year: 2,152).