13. Personnel expenses

The direct remuneration paid to members of the Executive Board totalled € 3,200 thousand for the financial year 2021 (previous year: € 3,182 thousand). More details on the remuneration paid to the Executive Board and the Supervisory Board can be found in Note 48.

The rise in personnel expenses in the reporting year is essentially due to increases in union wage rates and the addition of new companies to the group of consolidated companies.

Due to the previous year’s decrease in capacity utilisation at the container terminals in Hamburg, which was mainly caused by the coronavirus pandemic, there was an increase in expenses for staff deployment.

Social security contributions and benefits in the previous year included a significantly higher addition to a provision for restructuring as part of an efficiency programme. Social security contributions include payments towards the public pension scheme amounting to € 32,463 thousand (previous year: € 30,509 thousand) and payments to the German pension insurance scheme.

Service expense includes payments from defined benefit pension commitments and similar obligations, see Note 36.

In addition, the Group used an annual average of 624 employees (previous year: 549) of Gesamthafenbetriebs Gesellschaft m.b.H., Hamburg (GHB).