Note 52 Employee benefit expense
€ million | 2019 | 2018 | ||
Salaries | 79 | 84 | ||
Social security premiums | 9 | 9 | ||
Pension costs: | ||||
- contributions paid to multi-employer plans that are accounted for as defined-contribution plans | 13 | 13 | ||
Termination benefit expenses | 5 | 6 | ||
Long-term employee benefit expenses | 1 | -3 | ||
6 | 3 | |||
Other staff costs | 9 | 7 | ||
Total | 116 | 116 | ||
The employee benefit expense item 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. Employee benefit expenses in the income statement totalled €116 million in 2019 (2018: €116 million), relating 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 2019 was 1,092 (2018: 1,039).