Facebook Apps Create 1,82,000 Jobs

According to the report, the application makers themselves have created 53,000 jobs, with an additional 129,000 jobs created indirectly, adding "$12.19 in wages and benefits to the U.S. economy." Zynga, the most well-known Facebook application maker out there of aforementioned FarmVille fame, employs 2,000 people directly.

The study was done by a University of Maryland business professor in partnership with Facebook itself, so that jobs figure may be inflated a bit since the social network has a PR incentive to make itself look like a job growth engine. In fact, today's report may in part be a response to the growing strain of thought that while the U.S.'s high-technology sector is growing rapidly, it isn't creating as many domestic jobs as it should.

That grain of salt aside, 182,000 jobs is nothing to cough at, especially considering the fact that the Facebook "app economy" is just a part of the larger application-based economy growing in the U.S. As a point of comparison, the entire U.S. economy created 105,000 net jobs this past summer. Those 182,000 Facebook app jobs, though, don't represent net job growth--some jobs created by Facebook applications could be squeezing employers in other industries, similar to how the auto makers of yesteryear squeezed the horse-and-buggy business.