17. Personnel expenses

Personnel expenses can be broken down as follows:

€ million

2017/18

2018/19

Wages and salaries

2,173

2,264

Social security expenses, expenses for post-employment benefits and related employee benefits

552

552

thereof for post-employment benefits

(43)

(41)

 

2,725

2,816

Wages and salaries include expenses relating to restructuring measures and severance payments of €23 million (2017/18: €19 million). The variable remuneration rose from €52 million in financial year 2017/18 to €81 million in financial year 2018/19. Wages and salaries also include expenses for long-term remunerationcomponents totalling €7 million (2017/18: €16 million).

Annual average number of group employees in the continuing segment:

Number of employees by headcount

2017/18

2018/19

Blue collar/white collar

103,072

99,843

Apprentices/trainees

1,840

1,811

 

104,912

101,654

This includes an absolute number of 16,902 (2017/18: 17,245) part-time employees. The number of employees working outside of Germany stood at 81,607 (2017/18: 84,425). This includes 80,660 blue and white collar employees (2017/18: 83,498). In addition, 947 trainees were employed abroad (2017/18: 927).