Employees

As at 30 June 2016, the KION Group employed 23,804 full-time equivalents (31 December 2015: 23,506). The increase in the number of employees is largely due to first-time consolidations in the first quarter as well as growth in eastern Europe.

Personnel expenses rose by 6.2 per cent to €729.2 million in the first half of the year (H1 2015: €686.4 million), mainly as a result of the increase in the number of employees and changes to collective bargaining agreements. Other factors were the acquisition of Egemin Automation (including Retrotech Inc.) and the opening of the new plant in Stříbro, Czech Republic. > TABLE 16

Employees (full-time equivalents)

16

 

30/06/2016

31/12/2015

Change

Western Europe

16,556

16,515

0.2%

Eastern Europe

2,064

1,921

7.4%

Americas

873

693

26.0%

Asia

3,727

3,812

–2.2%

Rest of world

584

565

3.4%

Total

23,804

23,506

1.3%