The social networking juggernaut Facebook is adding more than $200 billion to the international economy. Like.
A new study by consulting firm Deloitte & Touche that Facebook commissioned has discovered that the social media outlet has a worldwide economic impact of $227 billion and has created 4.5 million jobs. With business advertising, a games section, marketing tools, mobile applications and a userbase of more than one billion individuals, it can be difficult to dispute the report.
According to the data, Facebook gives North America a $104 billion boost and 1.2 million jobs; Europe, the Middle East and Africa receive a $70 billion impact with 1.5 million jobs; Central and South America get $21 billion in economic growth with 600,000 jobs; and the Asia Pacific region is allocated with a $35 billion short in the arm and 1.3 million jobs.
“Our study finds that Facebook enables significant global economic activity by helping to unlock new opportunities through connecting people and businesses, lowering barriers to marketing, and stimulating innovation,” said Jolyon Barker, Deloitte’s Global Managing Director of Technology, Media & Telecommunications, in a statement.
Facebook maintains a wide variety of revenue streams – from direct advertising sales to its auto-play video ads – and this isn’t just benefitting the social network but other people as well. Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg told Reuters on Friday that individuals all over the world are finding new business opportunities because of the website.
“People believe that technology creates jobs in the tech sector and destroys jobs everywhere else. This report shows that’s not true,” said Sandberg. We’re no longer in a place where large companies can create the jobs the world needs.”
This new information will give Sandberg something to talk about when she participates in Davos, Switzerland for the World Economic Forum this week.
However, there are some detractors of the report, the Wall Street Journal says. Ostensibly, various independent economists criticized both Deloitte and Facebook for using questionable methodology to compile the report as well as giving every single “Like” a value and assuming that Facebook is responsible for one-sixth of smartphone sales.
Stanford economist Roger Noll told the business newspaper that the results have relatively zero meaning and that the social network “is an effect, not a cause” for substantial economic growth in these regions. Meanwhile, Tyler Cowen, a professor of economics at George Mason University, suggests that Facebook is unlikely to be responsible for as many jobs or economic growth as the report avers.
In other words, smartphones allow users to peruse Facebook and not the other way around.
Sandberg disagrees and retorted that Facebook is a significant component in technology.
“We know Facebook is one of the main drivers of why people buy phones, particularly in the developing world,” she said. “People will walk into phone stores and say ‘I want Facebook.’ People actually confuse Facebook and the internet in some places. We take our responsibility to be good corporate citizens really seriously.”
It may appear that the cantankerous economists may wish Facebook would finally roll out the “dislike” button for this report.
