Employees

Significant decline in employee numbers

Against the background of the difficult economic situation, employee numbers decreased further. On December 31, 2009, ThyssenKrupp had 174,763 employees worldwide, 22,412 or 11.4% fewer than a year earlier. With the exception of Steel Americas, which is currently under establishment, there were job reductions in all business areas.

Compared with the end of the last fiscal year on September 30, 2009, the headcount fell by 12,732 or 6.8%. The workforce in the Materials Services business area decreased significantly by 12,344, mainly as a result of disposals.

Employee numbers declined above all in Germany, where the headcount dropped by 9.4% compared with September 30, 2009 to 73,598; in the rest of the world there was a 4.8% decrease to 101,165. At the end of December 2009, 42% of our employees were based in Germany, 24% in the rest of Europe, 13% in the NAFTA region, 10% in Asia – in particular China and India – 9% in South America and 2% in the rest of the world.

Short-time working has been scaled back in the current fiscal year. In December 2009 roughly 11,000 employees were still working short hours, including 2,600 at Berco in Italy, 900 at Defontaine in France, and 800 each at ThyssenKrupp Steel Europe AG and ThyssenKrupp Umformtechnik.

One of the key areas of human resources work was the implementation of the new Group structure. Around 450 employees were affected by the elimination of the segment holding companies. As part of the focusing of administrative functions, such as IT services and payroll accounting, some 530 jobs were reallocated to the new business services companies and to ThyssenKrupp AG. This process of focusing is not yet completed.