Facebook to boost staff by 50 per cent

Online social networking site Facebook is looking to expand its staff by as much as 50 per cent this year, its chief executive Mark Zuckerberg told Bloomberg news agency.

Facebook's website says it has more than 900 employees.

The company, which counts venture capitalist Peter Thiel, Accel Partners, Microsoft Corp and Russian Internet investment firm Digital Sky Technologies among its investors, has more than 250 million registered users.

In June, rival MySpace, owned by News Corp, said it would cut 30 per cent of its US staff and two-thirds of its international workforce