annex More than 60 percent of parliaments employ less than 500 staff. The 10 parliaments with biggest budget6 employ an average of 4,268 permanent staff. The 10 parliaments with the smallest budget7 have on average 70 staff.
Number of staff by population size
Number of staff: 5 lowest and 5 highest Total staff
Staff per parliamentarian
Tuvalu
5
0.33
3.48
Liechtenstein
7
0.28
399
2.25
8
0.38
10 - 50 million
802
2.64
St. Vincent and the Grenadines
Over 50 million
3,995
5.92
Andorra
15
0.54
862
3.76
Nauru
18
1.00
India
3,691
4.67
Indonesia
3,734
6.67
Philippines
3,922
12.90
Mexico
7,257
11.56
Number of staff
Staff per parliamentarian
Below 1 million
50
1.05
1 - 5 million
378
5 - 10 million
Population
All categories
Number of staff by region Number of staff
Staff per parliamentarian
242
1.60
United States of America
15,907
29.73
2,120
9.55
Global average
862
3.76
Arab States
517
2.59
Asia-Pacific
1,136
4.70
665
3.26
Africa Americas
Europe
Regionally, the Americas have the highest average number of parliamentary staff. This average is skewed by the US Congress, whose staff is twice as big as that of the next largest parliament. Meanwhile, Cuba recorded the lowest ratio of staffers per parliamentarian (0.20).
Number of parliaments according to size of parliamentary staff
102
Country
Number
%
Below 50
13
11.61%
51 - 100
13
11.61%
101 - 200
12
10.71%
201 - 500
30
26.79%
501 - 1000
22
19.64%
1001 - 2000
9
8.04%
Over 2000
13
11.61%
Total
112