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.

122,404

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. They contribute to changing the world we live in for the better with innovative and sustainable solutions. We remain 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 in the future. As part of the updated corporate strategy, we will sharpen our focus on employee engagement and impactful leadership. 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. We want our employees to thrive and best contribute their individual talents – also considering the increasingly rapidly changing environment, especially as a result of demographic change and the digitalization of work. 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

At the end of 2018, BASF had 122,404 employees (2017: 115,490); of these, 3,174 were apprentices¹ (2017: 3,103). 3,226 employees were on temporary contracts (of which 40.9% were women). The higher headcount was primarily due to the businesses acquired from Bayer. In addition, 2,017 employees from the disposal group for the oil and gas business were included in the number of employees as of December 31, 2018.

1 At BASF, the apprenticeship program trains students for technical, scientific and business vocations as well as for trade and craft professions.