METRICS: EMPLOYEES AND NON-EMPLOYEES

Metrics related to the characteristics of employees

A total of 614,082 employees were employed at the Volkswagen Group at the end of the 2024 reporting year; the number of employees is given in headcount The definition of employees covers anyone with an active employment contract who takes part in the Volkswagen Group’s value creation process, including members of top management, people in the passive phase of partial retirement, and vocational trainees. The quantitative disclosures do not include people in dormant employment, such as people on parental leave. Nor do they include employees in academic training, such as interns, student workers, or students studying for a PhD, master’s degree, or bachelor’s degree. Both full-time and part-time employees are counted as employees. A full-time employee works the maximum number of hours per day, week, or month that are defined for the employee category in question in accordance with the national laws, collective bargaining agreements, or company regulations. Any deviation from the collectively or non-collectively agreed full-time weekly working hours is deemed to constitute part-time employment. Permanent employees do not have an end date in their employment contracts. Temporary employees means all of the respective undertaking’s employees that have a temporary contract with an end date. Non-guaranteed hours employees are classified as temporary employees. They are employed without a guarantee of a minimum or fixed number of working hours. A non-guaranteed hours employee must make themselves available for work as required, but the employer is not contractually obligated to offer the employee a minimum or fixed number of working hours per day, week, or month.

In the reporting year, 37,516 employees left the Volkswagen Group. The staff turnover rate was 6.1%. It is calculated by dividing the number of people who left by the average number of employees in the reporting year. The calculation is based on the data from December of the previous year to December of the financial year regarding employees of the Volkswagen Group’s reportable entities in the future in the context of the requirements of the ESRS. The reference base is the average number of employees in this period. The following groups are included in employees leaving: employees who have left the Volkswagen Group due to dismissal, retirement, death or resignation.

The following tables show the distribution of employees by gender, country of employment and contract type.

Workforce disclosures are also contained in the Group management report under “Sustainable Value Enhancement” chapter under “People” section. Discrepancies between the figures are due to the inclusion of the workforce of the Chinese joint ventures in the Group management report. The total number of employees includes 33 employees (“Not disclosed”) who have made use of their local legal right not to disclose their gender.

Gender is disclosed as specified by the employees themselves. The total number of employees includes 33 employees who have made use of their local legal right not to disclose their gender.

EMPLOYEES BY CONTRACT TYPE, BROKEN DOWN BY MARKET

As of Dec. 31, 2024

Metrics related to non-employees

Non-employees include self-employed people and people provided by undertakings primarily engaged in employment activities (known as temporary external personnel). The total number (headcount) of non-employees working in the Group was 25,162 at the end of the reporting year.

Metrics related to collective bargaining coverage and social dialog

A total of 92.0% of the Volkswagen Group’s employees are covered by collective bargaining agreements. This number only relates to employees in countries in the European Economic Area (EEA) in the first reporting year in accordance with the ESRS. A collective bargaining agreement means a written agreement between trade unions – or, in their absence, duly elected workers’ representatives – and employers, which, among other things, governs working hours and wages as core components. A total of 99.1% of the Volkswagen Group’s employees in the EEA are covered by workers’ representatives. There are agreements with employees regarding representation by a European Works Council (EWC, EWC SE, EWC SEC).

Metrics related to adequate wages

The statutory minimum wage of a country or, where this is not defined, a benchmark that is not lower than the minimum wage of a neighboring country with similar socioeconomic status is used as a benchmark for adequate wages in accordance with ESRS requirements within the EEA. As there is no uniform methodology for setting a minimum wage outside the EEA, the benchmarks from the Wage Indicator Foundation’s Living Wage database, which is cited in the requirements of the ESRS as a possible data source for countries outside the EEA, are used. The benchmarks for all the countries outside the EEA where the Volkswagen Group has employees are obtained from this database. The underlying benchmarks were last updated for this report in October 2024.

The salary components used to calculate the lowest gross hourly wages in each case are specified in accordance with the requirements of the ESRS and uniformly defined throughout the Group. Only the base salary and guaranteed additional payments are included in the calculation. However, in many cases, there are other remuneration components in the Volkswagen Group that are not included in this calculation. From the Company’s perspective, these other remuneration components may represent a fundamental proportion of wages but are not taken into account in accordance with the ESRS.

For the following metrics, the lowest gross hourly wages for each company are compared to the respective country’s benchmark. These comparisons were used as a basis to ascertain that near enough all of the Group’s employees are paid a wage above the respective benchmarks and therefore receive an adequate wage in accordance with the ESRS definition. The few exceptions here are listed in the table below, which lists the countries and the number of Volkswagen Group employees who receive a wage below the set ESRS benchmark. In addition, the table shows the proportion of these Volkswagen Group employees who receive a wage that is below the respective benchmark in relation the total number of Volkswagen Group employees in the country in question. The employees listed in the table are still remunerated in accordance with existing local statutory requirements and the provisions of collective bargaining agreements. Furthermore, other remuneration components that do not fall within the definition of income according to the ESRS mean that the employees’ actual wages are higher than those depicted in this comparison. These additional remuneration components include, for example, sales commission (e.g. in Singapore), additional contributions to pensions and/or health insurance, and free catering (e.g. in Morocco). Further temporary effects also come into play, such as lower wages paid during a specific probation period (e.g. three to six months in Mexico). Similar practices are used in Albania, Brazil and Sweden, as well as Austria to a certain extent, where employees are generally moved to a higher wage group after a short induction period. The other employees in Austria mainly work on a part-time basis. The two cases in Germany relate to trainees, who fall within the scope of the Berufsbildungsgesetz (BBiG – German Vocational Training Act).

Metrics related to training

The average number of training hours per employee in accordance with the requirements of the ESRS was 18.9 hours. The calculation is based on the employee data from December of the previous year to December of the reporting year. Time-bound and non-time-bound classroom and online training with or without a trainer (self-guided) count as training. In time-bound learning, primarily the precise qualification time is recorded. If this is not technically possible, the stored target value per non-time-bond training measure is evaluated.