Company and employee representatives at BASF SE in Ludwigshafen, Germany, signed a new site agreement, titled “Meeting the challenges of constant change together”. It applies to the approximately 36,000 employees of BASF SE at the site and will run from January 1, 2016 until December 31, 2020.

The company will continue to forgo forced redundancies for the duration of the agreement. Furthermore, the company has committed itself to spend a total of at least €6 billion on investments, upgrading and maintenance measures between 2016 and 2020 at the Ludwigshafen site.

The agreement also considers demographic and structural changes. By 2020, one in two employees at the Ludwigshafen site will be older than 50. From 2018, the number of employees retiring will start to increase sharply. Ludwigshafen will remain BASF’s most important research and development site.

• BASF SE, Ludwigshafen, Germany