EMPLOYEE COSTS OF DISTRIBUTION TRADE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION AND SERBIA

The issue of distribution trade cost analysis is continuously topical, significant and complex. Due to the fact that costs, in addition to sales revenue, affect the realization of the target profit in the distribution trade, it is necessary to manage costs in distribution trade as efficiently as possible by applying modern concepts. Starting from here, this paper comparatively analyzes the impact of employee costs (personnel costs) on the efficiency of distribution trade between the European Union and Serbia. In this context, it was determined that Germany, France and Italy (leading countries of the European Union) are in the first three places according to the efficiency cost of employees in the distribution trade. Serbia's distribution trade is ranked twenty-fifth in terms of efficiency cost of employees. From this aspect, it is better than the countries in the region (Croatia, Slovenia). According to the results of the linear regression analysis, the efficiency cost of employees in the distribution trade of Serbia is greatly influenced by: number of employees, assets (as a measure of company size), capital, sales and profit (Adjusted R Square .999). In this context, capital, i.e. financial indebtedness, has a special influence on efficiency cost (Sig. .014 <.05). Given that, in order to achieve the target costs of employees, as a factor of performance, in the distribution trade of Serbia, it is necessary to manage human resources, assets, capital, sales and profits as efficiently as possible.