8 Employee benefits expenses

EUR 000

2021/2022

2020/2021

Salaries and other employee benefit expenses

299,411

252,353

Social security costs

34,589

31,302

Pension costs

18,247

15,753

Long-term employee benefits

15

768

Severance expenses

567

1,221

352,829

301,397

In line with 2020/2021 KPMG has further increased the various components of salaries and other employee benefits (mainly fixed and variable pay and additional one-time payments) during 2022 in reflection of the firm's higher profits. The average salary per KPMG employed FTE increased by 3.3% (2020/2021: increase 13.4%), which growth is a decrease year on year in comparison with 2020/2021 due to the FTE increase of 9.3% (in accordance with last year’s outlook) of mainly starter functions.

Total employee expenses increased by 16.6% (2020/2021: increased by 10.4%).

Number of staff and partners

Average FTE

2021/2022

2020/2021

Professional staff

2,881

2,626

Support staff

652

604

Support staff for KPMG International

122

115

3,655

3,345

Partners

158

145

3,813

3,490