As of December 31, 2000, we had 12,000 employees, of which 7,684 were employees of Embratel, 4,209 were employees of BrasilCenter Comunicações Ltda. and 107 were employees of Star One S.A. Approximately 35% of our employees were employed in repair, engineering, operations maintenance, and other similar positions, 50% in customer service and sales and marketing positions and 15% in administrative positions (including those in information technology), whereas 2.73% of our employees were in executive management positions and 2.66% in supervisory positions related to customer service and sales and marketing.

Approximately 30% of all 12,000 employees are members of state labor unions associated either with the Federação Nacional dos Trabalhadores em Telecomunicações, known as Fenattel, or with the Federação Interstadual dos Trabalhadores em Telecomunicações, known as Fittel. We enter new collective labor agreements every year with the local unions. The current collective agreement for Embratel will expire in November 2001. In March 2001, we began to negotiate the second collective labor agreement with BrasilCenter employees, which is expected to have a two-year term. We consider our employee relations to be satisfactory. We have never experienced a work stoppage that had a material effect on our operations.

We have established a pension fund, Fundação Embratel de Seguridade Social - Telos, known as Telos, the purpose of which is to supplement government-provided retirement benefits for Embratel and Star One employees. Telos administers two different plans. The first is a defined benefit plan under which we make monthly contributions to Telos, currently equal to 19.8% of the aggregate salary. In addition, we contribute 2.32% of the aggregate salary base for funding the post-retirement medical plan for approximately 70 employees who remain in the defined benefit plan. Each employee member of this first plan also makes a monthly contribution to Telos based on age and salary. Members of Telos generally qualify for full pension benefits after reaching age 58 and having completed at least 35 years of service for men and 30 years of service for women. The second is a defined contribution plan which was formed in the last half of 1998. All of our new employees may only enter this defined contribution plan. Under an offer made by our management, existing employees had the option of migrating from the defined benefit plan to the defined contribution plan. The offer expired on December 31, 1998, and the transfer to the defined contribution plan became effective January 1, 1999. Approximately 95% of Embratel and Star One S.A. employees belong to the new defined contribution plan. We match employees' contributions to the fund up to a maximum of 8% of each employees' salary.

Brasil Center Comunicações Ltda.' employees do not have a retirement benefit plan. Telos operates independently from us, and its assets and liabilities are fully segregated from ours. See note 21 to the consolidated financial statements.