Facebook wants to help you find a job. The social network announced on Thursday that it has teamed up with the U.S. Department of Labor and three employment-related agencies in an attempt to decrease the country’s 9.1% unemployment rate using social media — a project that may eventually include a Facebook jobs posting system.

The new partnership brings formal job hunting content to Facebook — which some recruiters already prefer over LinkedIn — for the first time.

As part of the initiative, Facebook has launched a new “Social Jobs” portal that makes easily accessible educational content and tools from its partners at the Department of Labor, National Association of Colleges and Employers, DirectEmployers Association, and the National Association of State Workforce Agencies. It plans to promote this page in the 10 states with the highest unemployment rates and Puerto Rico.

Facebook has also promised to conduct surveys about how job hunters, recruiters and college career departments use social media.

The most interesting aspect of the new partnership, however, is a plan to inch Facebook into job listings territory. Facebook’s statement announcing the partnership mentioned “systems where new job postings can be delivered virally through the Facebook site at no charge.”

What shape such a job posting system would take, and whether Facebook has any solid plans beyond research to pursue one, are still not clear. A job board that lives on Facebook could put the social network in direct competition with sites like LinkedIn and Monster.com.

“We’re not going to limit ourselves to what’s possible today,” a Facebook spokesperson told Mashable. “Instead, we’re going to devote resources to develop the innovations that are going to help the job seekers of tomorrow. We’re going to invest in research in new technologies that will deliver jobs virally at no charge and expand opportunities for people to create social job searching experiences online.”

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, ilbusca

More About: Facebook, jobs, trending, U.S. Department of labor

Are you a techie looking for work? We recently offered some tips on landing jobs at Google, Apple and Facebook, but there are more companies in the Valley than those three. And you might be wondering what the culture is like at each of these companies, as well as at LinkedIn, Twitter, Eventbrite, Gaia and Tagged.

Back in August, we brought you word of awesome perks at various startups; now, we bring you perks at a number of Silicon Valley’s largest and finest. From yoga to catered lunches, 401(k)s to dry cleaning, sports teams to vacation days, these tech companies seem to understand that quality of life affects productivity — and that having to run fewer errands after work means you’re more likely to stay at the office.

Check out the infographic below from ResumeBear for a breakdown of who offers what perks. Do you work at any of these companies and take advantage of any of these perks? Let us know in the comments below.

Social Media Job Listings

Every week we post a list of social media and web job opportunities. While we publish a huge range of job listings, we’ve selected some of the top social media job opportunities from the past two weeks to get you started. Happy hunting!

Interactive Designer at Weber Shandwick / Powell Tate in Washington, DC
Digital Producer at Adkeeper in New York
Software Engineer — Front End at Yelp, Inc. in San Francisco

Infographic courtesy of ResumeBear

More About: Facebook, features, Google, infographic, job search series, jobs, linkedin, mashable, Tech, trending, Twitter
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