Note 51 Employee benefit expense
€ million | 2017 | 2016 | ||
Salaries | 82 | 85 | ||
Social security premiums | 9 | 9 | ||
Pension costs: | ||||
- contributions paid to multi-employer plans that are accounted for as defined-contribution plans | 12 | 11 | ||
Termination benefit expenses | 4 | 5 | ||
Other long-term employee benefit expenses | 7 | 6 | ||
11 | 11 | |||
Other staff costs | 8 | 9 | ||
Total | 122 | 125 | ||
Staff costs mainly concerns the costs of group-wide activities at holding company level.
Nearly all the personnel are on the Alliander N.V. payroll. The staff costs are charged to the business units where the employees concerned work. The total staff costs recognised in the income statement (€122 million; 2016: €125 million) relate to Alliander N.V. corporate staff department and service unit staff.
The number of employees, based on a 38-hour week (FTE), at year-end 2017 was 1,105 (2016: 1,174).