Employees

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

Our employees are key to the successful implementation of BASF’s strategy. That is why we rely on our employees and leaders. We help them to develop the necessary skills to support our customers in the best possible way and provide them with the tools they need to do so. We promote a working atmosphere based on mutual trust with attractive working conditions, in which employees can develop their individual skills and potential. We want to further strengthen our employee engagement and innovative power through the inclusion of diversity. This also positions us to meet the challenges of an increasingly rapidly changing environment.

Nevertheless, attracting and retaining qualified employees presents us with an increasing number of challenges and risks. By offering various learning and development opportunities as well as attractive compensation and benefits, and with our commitment to supporting a balance between personal and professional life, we want to maintain our reputation as an attractive employer. In order to continue to attract and retain talents for our company in the future, we work continuously on BASF’s attractiveness as an employer. We systematically record short and long-term opportunities and risks as part of our general opportunity and risk management.

Number of employees

As of December 31, 2023, the number of employees increased to 111,991 employees compared with 111,481 employees as of December 31, 2022. The rise was primarily due to staff increases in Asia Pacific, especially for the new Verbund site in Zhanjiang, China. This was partially offset by retirements and departures due to dormant employment as well as measures in connection with the cost savings program focusing on Europe. We employed 3,045 apprentices (2022: 3,049), of which 21.3% were women. A total of 2,305 employees were on temporary contracts (of which 43.4% were women).

BASF Group employees by region

(Total: 111,991, of which 26.7% women, as of December 31, 2023)