29 Employees by market unit 20091 Central Europe 48,126 Pan-European Gas 3,143 U.K. 16,098 Nordic 5,570 U.S. Midwest 3,119 Energy Trading 1,175 New Markets 7,976 Corporate Center2 3,120 Total 88,227 1Excludes board members/managing directors (330) and apprentices (2,556). 2Includes E.ON IS. Workforce by region 20091 Germany 35,636 United Kingdom 17,179 Romania 6,772 Sweden 5,317 Hungary 4,913 Russia 4,702 USA and Canada 3,256 Czech Republic 2,735 Bulgaria 2,108 Other2 5,609 1Excludes board members/managing directors (330) and apprentices (2,556). 2Includes Italy, Spain, France, the Netherlands, Poland, and several other countries. Employees Our Team HR supports successful implemen- tation of PerformtoWin Job-security milestones PerformtoWin, our Group-wide program aimed at achieving sustained cost and performance improvements in all market units and at all stages of the value chain, has made significant progress. Continuing a long tradition at our company, we've worked closely with employee represen- tatives to shape how organizational changes resulting from the program will be implemented. In August, the E.ON Board of Management and employee representatives in Germany agreed on the basic principles for implementing Perform- toWin and how to handle job-related issues. Management and employee repre- sentatives have also agreed on a compre- hensive plan for employees affected by PerformtoWin projects at our operations in Germany. At E.ON companies outside Germany, employee representatives are involved in similar processes in accordance with the laws of the respective country. Streamlining our management structures Integrating our new market units and creating new functional entities have steadily increased the number of man- agers at our company. In the wake of these changes, it's time to reevaluate our management structures. Our objective going forward is to increase management efficiency by reducing the number of management positions and by increasing individual managers' area of responsibility. Foresightful hiring approach As part of our foresightful planning, we've taken a conservative approach to hiring since the start of the recession. Moreover, PerformtoWin will result in redundancies. By scaling back our external hiring, we're creating more opportunities for employees affected by redundancies to find new jobs within our organization.This promotes job security, which is the centerpiece of the PerformtoWin agreement reached by management and employee representa- tives in Germany. But we still need to think ahead and ensure that we have an adequate supply of potential future leaders and highly skilled technical staff. And, despite the sluggish economy, we'll continue to meet our social responsibility to provide training to young people. Consequently, the E.ON Graduate Program as well as our appren- tice program and training initiative in Germany are excluded from the hiring cut- back. Our operations in countries outside Germany have defined similar exceptions, predominantly for jobs that can't be filled internally.