Facebook has teamed up with the U.S. Department of Labor, the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), DirectEmployers Association (DE) and the National Association of State Workforce Agencies (NASWA) to create the Social Jobs Partnership. The main aim of the initiative is to get unemployed Americans back to work by harnessing the power of social networks.

Social networking services are becoming increasingly prominent in recruitment. Take, for example, LinkedIn. The professional social network now has more than 120 million members, with its users in the U.S. having changed jobs more than 7.4 million times since 2009. LinkedIn is actively helping companies hire the best talent and it revealed details of a new way for recruiters to manage and track job candidates on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, a survey carried out by NACE showed that over 70 percent of college career centers have a Facebook page. Recruiters are using social networking services in various other ways as part of the hiring process. For instance, the U.S. Army is targeting new recruits through several social media channels.

The partnership between Facebook, the Department of Labor and the nonprofits is carrying out several initiatives that aim to help Americans find jobs by leveraging social networks.

The Social Jobs Partnership Facebook Page will act as the hub for the partnership’s activity. It will play host to resources and content designed to help both job seekers and employers. Facebook will promote the page with announcements that will target the 10 states with the highest unemployment rates along with Puerto Rico, which has an unemployment rate of 16 percent.

The partners will also:

• Carry out in-depth research to find out exactly how job seekers, career centers at colleges and recruiters are using social networking services.

• Explore and develop systems that will allow job postings to be made available on the Facebook website at no charge. Perhaps this means that Facebook is planning to introduce its own job board or a social recruitment feature to rival the likes of BeKnown or even LinkedIn.

• Promote existing government programs and resources that are designed to help job seekers get back to work.

• Distribute material to recruiters, job seekers and government agencies about how to leverage the power of the social Web to their advantage.

U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis said:

Linking American job seekers with the resources they need to get back to work is a top priority of the Obama Administration and my department. By leveraging the power of the social web, this initiative will provide immediate, meaningful and ready-to-use information for job seekers and employers, and a modern platform to better connect them.