Social networking website Facebook, known as a platform for connecting with friends and acquaintances, also seems to be helping create lakhs of jobs, says a new study.

According to the study by the University of Maryland's Robert H Smith School of Business, the proliferation of various Facebook-related applications could have created more than two lakh jobs this year alone in the US with salaries totalling more than USD 15 billion.

The study pegged the minimum number of such jobs at 1,82,000 this year, with at least USD 12.19 billion worth salaries and benefits in software companies making the applications for Facebook Platform and other sectors associated with such activities.

Terming this new phenomenon as 'App Economy', the study said that more than 53,000 new jobs have been created in software companies alone. These Apps include everything from productivity tools to popular games like 'Farmville' that users interact with on Facebook.

"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," Smith's Center for Digital Innovation, Technology, and Strategy co-director Il-Horn Hann said.

The business in the app economy has led to job creation at businesses that supply app developers, and in sectors that reap the benefits of increased household spending by app developers and suppliers from new app economy jobs and added jobs supported by the app economy.

Facebook itself employs about 2,000 people and boasts around 750 million users who install 20 million apps each day.