Employees

Our employees make a significant contribution to BASF’s 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.

110,302

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 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.

Number of employees

As of December 31, 2020, the number of employees decreased to 110,302 employees compared with 117,628 employees as of December 31, 2019. The decrease was due primarily to the sale of the construction chemicals business, which affected around 7,500 employees. An offsetting factor was the acquisition of Solvay’s polyamide business due to which around 1,200 employees joined the BASF Group including the employees of the Butachimie SNC and Alsachimie S.A.S. joint operations, both in Chalampé, France, which were counted on a pro rata basis. We employed 3,120 apprentices¹ (2019: 3,161). 2,128 employees were on temporary contracts (of which 44.0% were women).