Employees

Our employees make a significant contribution to BASF’s long-term success. We want to attract and retain talented people for our company and support them in their development. To do so, we cultivate a working environment that inspires and connects people. It is founded on inclusive leadership based on mutual trust, respect and dedication to top performance.

117,628

employees around the world

Employee engagement and leadership impact

on center stage

Strategy

We are committed to valuing and treating people with respect, and fostering an inspiring working environment

Our employees are key to the successful implementation of BASF’s strategy. We are convinced of the value of excellent employees, leaders and working conditions, and strive to give our employees the tools and skills necessary to be able to offer our customers products and services with an even greater level of differentiation and customization. Our new corporate strategy promotes a working atmosphere based on mutual trust, in which employees are given the space to optimally develop their individual talents and potential. This positions us to meet the challenges of an increasingly rapidly changing environment, demographic change and the digital workplace. In everything we do, we are committed to complying with internationally recognized labor and social standards. We want our working conditions to be a motor for innovation, and one way of achieving this is through inclusion of diversity. Lifelong learning and individual employee development lay the foundation for this. Compensation and benefits as well as offerings to balance personal and professional life complete our attractive total offer package. We track our employer rankings so that we can continue to attract talented people to the company in the future. Our employees play an important role here as ambassadors for BASF.

BASF Group employees by region (graphic)

Number of employees

As of December 31, 2019, the number of employees decreased to 117,628 employees compared with 122,404 employees as of December 31, 2018. That includes 6,964 employees in the disposal group for the construction chemicals business as of December 31, 2019 (December 31, 2018: 2,017 employees in the disposal group for the oil and gas business). We employed 3,161 apprentices¹ (2018: 3,174). 2,606 employees were on temporary contracts (of which 44.0% were women).

Of material significance to the decrease in the number of employees were the merger of the oil and gas businesses of Wintershall and DEA in the joint venture Wintershall Dea, as well as the sale of the paper and water chemicals business. As a result, the number of employees decreased by more than 3,000 employees.