Apple's iPhone weather app
/ file photo
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Looking for a promising career in a lousy economy? A new study suggests you're apt to find it in the apps built for smartphones, computer tablets and Facebook's online social network.
The demand for those applications has created 466,000 jobs in the U.S. since 2007. That's based on an analysis released Tuesday by technology trade group TechNet.
The estimate counts 311,000 jobs at companies making the apps and another 155,000 at local merchants that have expanded their payrolls in an economic ripple effect caused by increased spending at their businesses.
The study asserts this so-called "app economy" is still in the early stages of a boom driven by the mobile computing and social networking crazes unleashed by Apple Inc.'s iPhone and Facebook's online hangout.
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