17. Personnel expenses

Personnel expenses can be broken down as follows:

€ million

 

2016/17

 

2017/18

Wages and salaries

 

2,363

 

2,294

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

 

590

 

600

thereof for post-employment benefits

 

(29)

 

(43)

 

 

2,953

 

2,894

Wages and salaries include expenses relating to restructuring measures and severance payments of €20 million (2016/17: €31 million). Variable remuneration declined from €68 million in financial year 2016/17 to €52 million in financial year 2017/18. Wages and salaries also include expenses for long-term remuneration components totalling €18 million (2016/17: €29 million).

The discontinued operations incurred personnel expenses in the amount of €1,033 million (2016/17: €1,063 million).

Annual average number of group employees in the continued segment:

Number of employees by headcount

 

2016/17

 

2017/18

Blue collar/white collar

 

117,086

 

115,008

Apprentices/trainees

 

2,213

 

2,070

 

 

119,299

 

117,078

This includes an absolute number of 17,270 (2016/17: 17,821) part-time employees. The number of employees working outside of Germany stood at 96,592 (2016/17: 98,557). This includes 95,434 blue- and white-collar employees (2016/17: 97,316). An additional 1,158 (2016/17: 1,241) apprentices were employed outside of Germany.

In addition, 34,280 blue- and white-collar employees (2016/17: 34,691) and 1,068 apprentices/trainees (2016/17: 1,092) were employed in the discontinued segment.