Who are German HR Professionals?

Accordingly to Human Resources Manager, a German trade magazine for HR pros, one HR professional serves on average 100 employees in German companies.

By analysing data on a salary benchmarking site gehaltsvergleich.de we can understand better who German HR professionals are.

In March 2011, 308 HR professionals shared demographic information, information on their educational background and experience, as well as the employment details. Some 121 of them were male, 187 female. The average age of males was 41, of females 37.

Female are the majority of workers in HR departments in the age group younger then 44, male dominate in the age group 45+.

Males in HR department have on average higher level of education. In contrast, females attend further training and development workshops more frequently. At the same time, females completed their studies rather recently, while males are out of school for several years.

HR Professionals who have maximal five years of professional experience are mostly female (85 percent). The share of male and female among the professionals with 10+ years of experience is about the same.

Female HR professionals work more often part-time then their male counterparts. Among workers working more then 40 hours a week (most frequently 42 hour week) the share of male HR professionals is twice as large as the share of females.

Females usually work in companies with less then 500 employees. In companies employing between 501 and 999 employees, males prevail. About the same share of female and male HR professionals work at companies with 1000+ employees.

Some 70 percent of HR professionals work in small HR departments, staffed with 1 to 5 HR employees.