"There's an app for that" touts the iPhone commercials. And it turns out there are thousands of jobs to go with them. A new study says an entire 'App Economy' has sprung up, leading to the creation of nearly 500,000 jobs nationwide.

Washington state ranks third in the study at 6.4 percent of new jobs created to support apps and infrastructure for numerous platforms including Android, Apple's iOS, Blackberry and Windows Phone.

"In some ways, the researchers say it's like the new construction sector these companies need this kind of infrastructure to do business," says Todd Bishop with Geekwire.com

While California tops the list (followed by New York), Bishop says Washington's legacy wireless carriers form the foundation for what's become a huge local industry to support the new 'App Economy.'

"You've got T-Mobile USA, Clearwire, Microsoft's Windows Phone, HTC is based here, Amazon," says Bishop. Not to mention the hundreds of smaller companies that have sprung up to create everything from games to underlying infrastructure.

Bishop says the jobs run the gamut from programmers to administrative staff and include everything from marketers to graphic designers.

Josh Kerns, MyNorthwest.com Reporter