Number of employees at a U.S. Embassy?

Question

About how many people are employed by (by which I mean actually work within the building) any given U.S. embassy? I became curious after reading a book about the iran hostage crisis because they only took 52 hostages but the number of jobs an embassy has to do makes it seem like there should have been a lot more people there and the number of students involved in the hostage taking, a couple of hundred, makes it seem unlikely for any large number to escape.

Answer 1

The number of U.S. staff at an embassy differs wildly, ranging from two to three in Micronesia to close to 600 in Iraq. In almost any embassy the vast majority of the employees are actually local hires, natives of the country where the mission is located. Many of the U.S. employees are also not employees of the Department of State but come from the Department of Defense, Commerce, Agriculture, US AID, and so on.

Beyond the 52 hostages, 13 people were released after the embassy was taken over and six escaped. So the total would have been in the mid-70s, which is actually a rather good sized mission for the U.S.

Answer 2

This is a good question.  Honestly, I don't know.

I tried looking it up and couldn't find anything, but it wouldn't surprise me that they don't openly give such information out.

However I can take and make a logical guess.

I would say that it has no set number and that it differs from country to country.

Some may have 50(south america?), some may have 200-300(france?) depending on circumstances and how many americans visit and frequent such countries.

The biggest number that is a question are the marines.

is there a squad there?  a platoon?  Another number that I can't find and I'm guessing might differ depending on where it is located.

However I think the main makeup of Americans is and are the ambassador, his family and personal staff and the marines.

Aside from that I know that they hire and get employees from the local area.  I don't believe we bring in Americans for just general staffing, however I could be wrong.

About the Iran affair I read somewhere that the locals that worked for the US were killed I believe.

But US history doesn't focus on them, just the US hostages was all we ever cared about so I don't know too much about that.

I know my answer isn't very detailed.  However I hope it helps some.  :)