14 Staff costs/employees

1)	Prior-period amount adjusted, see Note 5.

In particular, our exit from the domestic US express business led to a reduction in staff costs.

Retirement benefit expenses include €559 million (previous year: €557 million) relating to contributions by Deutsche Post AG to Bundes-Pensions-Service für Post und Telekommunikation e.V. Further details can be found in Note 7.

Staff costs relate mainly to wages, salaries and compensation, as well as all other benefits paid to employees of the Group for their services in the year under review. Social security contributions relate in particular to statutory social security contributions paid by employers. The decrease is mainly attributable to the compensation payment obligations assumed in the previous year as part of the restructuring measures in the USA.

Retirement benefit expenses relate to current and former employees or their surviving dependants. These expenses consist of additions to pension provisions, employer contributions to supplementary occupational pension plans and retirement benefit payments by employers for their employees.

The average number of Group employees in the year under review, broken down by employee group, was as follows:

The employees of companies acquired or disposed of during the year under review were included ratably. Calculated as fulltime equivalents, the number of employees as at 31 December 2009 amounted to 424,686 (31 December 2008: 451,515). The number of employees at consolidated joint ventures amounted to 1,589 on a proportionate basis (previous year: 1,709).

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