FB 'App Economy' creates 1,82,000 US jobs, reveals study

Washington, Sept 20: Popularity has been booming for social networking site, Facebook and now a recent study has revealed that it is increasingly being used to create as many as 182,000 jobs and contributes billions of dollars in wages and benefits to the US economy.

The study carried out by University of Maryland's Robert H Smith School of Business showed that Facebook's "App Economy" has created a total of 235,644 jobs. It had also contributed somewhere close to $12.19 billion and $15.71 billion in wages and benefits to the US economy.

Il-Horn Hann, co-director of Smith's Center for Digital Innovation, Technology, and Strategy has been quoted as saying, "Our findings confirm that social media platforms have created a thriving new industry. As Facebook and other platforms grow, we will continue to see job growth and the ripple effects of these advances in the US economy."

With membership swelling for the Palo Alto, California-based Facebook, the numbers currently stand at 750 million members around the world. Also prominent are the tens of thousands of applications that are developed by third parties.

The study found that Facebook users install close to 20 million applications a day. It has also been reported that more than 53,000 new jobs have been created in software companies that make applications for the Facebook platform. The study found, "The jobs created in the app economy stimulate the creation of additional jobs in other sectors of the US economy."

It added, "First, jobs are created at businesses that supply app developers. Second, jobs are created as a result of household spending based on the income earned by employees at both app developers and businesses supplying app developers."

On focus of the study was popular applications on Facebook like Mafia Wars and Farmville that is estimated to have over 2,000 employees and an estimated value of $15 billion to $20 billion.

OneIndia News