Unemployment In Nigeria Research Articles

Youth, Parental-determined Strategy towards Tackling Perennial Unemployment in Nigeria as Device for a Safe Future

This study focuses on the youth and the parent fighting future unemployment through present combination of apprenticeship with studentship. A phenomenon of which little is known, conducted in 4 selected secondary schools in Ondo state, Nigeria. Data through a multistage sampling technique, from 160 students’ terminal mean scores of third and first terminal results of 2016/2017 and 2017/2018 sessions respectively, were analyzed. Results showed that consideration of the possibility of future unemployment has significant relationship with students’ combination of apprenticeship with academics [r (158) = 0.211, p < .05] among others. Although parents seek to play safe regarding future employment opportunity for their children, differences in mean scores in academic performance indicate that those who did not combine studentship with apprenticeship (M=515.75; SD=171.58) outperformed those who did (M=513.52; SD=146.24). Similarly, combined activities have a direct relationship with stress capable of affecting physical and mental life of students thus casting doubt on the future safety net of the decision.

YOUTH ENTREPRENEURIAL DEVELOPMENT: A PANACEA FOR OVERCOMING SECURITY CHALLENGES AND UNEMPLOYMENT IN NIGERIA

Nigeria has a large youth population that often plays a key role in the conflict, most especially violent ones. Youth unemployment in Nigeria constitutes a security challenge and can endanger socio-economic development. This paper examines youths’ entrepreneurial development as a panacea for overcoming security challenges and unemployment in Nigeria. The study was carried out using the survey design. Both primary and secondary data were utilized for the study. The descriptive statistics of simple percentages, frequencies, tables, means, and standard deviation were employed to analyze the data, while inferential statistics of z-test was used to test the hypotheses. The findings of this study revealed that causes of security challenges in Nigeria are unemployment, lack of good governance, corrupt practices of government officials, lack of quality education, lack of basic infrastructure facilities, poverty and marginalization of the youth. The researchers recommended that entrepreneurial education through training and skill acquisition could be a means through which the government may curtail security and unemployment situation in Nigeria. The most effective way for these youth to become catalysts for change and economic growth is through entrepreneurship. This research implies that no meaningful development would be achieved without first dealing with unemployment situation in Nigeria.

Revisiting the trade and unemployment nexus: Empirical evidence from the Nigerian economy

The recent exacerbation of unemployment crisis in Nigeria stands to be a serious threat to both socio‐economic stability and progress of the country just as the report from the Bureau of Statistics shows that at least over 8.5 million people had no gainful employment at all as at the last quarter of the year 2017. It is on the above premise, that the present study explores the link between trade and unemployment for the case of Nigeria with the intention of exploring how the unemployment crisis has been impacted within the dynamics of the country's trade performance. The empirical evidence shows that the nation's terms of trade were insignificant to unemployment rate, while trade openness and domestic investment, on the other hand, have significant opposing impacts on unemployment in Nigeria over the period of the study. Further breakdowns from the empirical analysis also revealed that the Philips curves proposition is valid within the Nigerian economic context, while the evidences for the validity of Okun's law only exist in the short‐run scenario. Based on the empirical results, we recommend that concerted effort should be geared toward stimulating domestic investment by providing adequate financial and infrastructural facilities that will promote ease of doing business while utmost precautions are taken to ensure that unemployment crisis is not exacerbated when combating inflation in the economy in the wake of dynamic trade relations.

Industrialization and Youth Unemployment in Nigeria: An Autoregressive Distributive Lag (ARDL) Approach

This paper is an empirical investigation into the role of the industrial sector in curbing youth unemployment in Nigeria using time series data that covers the period 1991 to 2019. The data were subjected to unit root test using the Augmented Dickey Fuller and Philip-Peron test techniques. THE data was analysed using the ARDL approach and Granger causality test. The result of the unit root test reported that the variables were integrated in mixed order of levels and first difference. This mixed order of integration necessitated the use of the ARDL Bounds test for cointegration. From the bounds test, there exist a long-run/levels relationship between youth unemployment and the explanatory variables. Also, the error correction term (-0.6215) showed that 62.15% of the short-run disequilibrium is corrected annually. The result further revealed that industrial output exerts a negative effect on youth unemployment both in the short-run and in the long-run. This implies that increasing the volume of industrial activities will reduce youth unemployment. The Granger causality test also showed that there exists causal relationship between youth unemployment and industrialization in Nigeria. The paper therefore recommended the need for boosting industrialization in Nigeria as it will curb massive youth unemployment in the country rather than advocating on entrepreneurship. This is because a strong industrial base will spring up more jobs than new ventures who are noted for folding up within few years of operations.

Population Growth and Unemployment in Nigeria

The Nigerian economy has been seriously bedeviled by a myriad of economic malaise that has explained the slow pace of its growth rate and a severe decline in development. It is in view of the above that the study critically examined the relationship between population growth and unemployment in Nigeria. The paper employed data from secondary sources which covered the period of 1991-2016, sourced from the World Bank data base. The method of analysis was the Johansen Cointegration and Error correction model. ADF unit root test was used to establish the order of integration of the variables. Granger causality test was used to examine the direction of causality among the variables. A positive relationship was found to exist between population growth and unemployment. The result of the regression analysis shows that population plays a major role in the increased level of unemployment in Nigeria. The findings showed that population growth has a strong impact on unemployment in Nigeria. This means that a rise in population growth leads to a rise in unemployment. The study concluded that to combat the acute unemployment in the country, the Government should ensure there is job creation especially in the agricultural and manufacturing sectors. Private sectors employers should be given subsidies so as to encourage them to employ more people. Keywords: Population growth, Unemployment, Corruption, Rural urban migration. JEL Classification: E24, J62, J11 DOI : 10.7176/JESD/11-2-10 Publication date: January 31 st 2020

Entrepreneurship Training for Mitigating Unemployment in Nigeria: How have the Tertiary Institutions Fared?

The increasing unemployment in Nigeria is one of the social problems contributing to abject poverty, crime and other civil vices plaguing the country today. Although the public and private sectors have made some efforts in addressing the problem, available current statistics show that both sectors lack the capacity to solely employ the entire manpower base of the country. Considering the potential of entrepreneurial training for reducing unemployment, the Nigerian government through the National Universities Commission (NUC) introduced entrepreneurial education as a compulsory course in various higher institutions. In this study, we aimed to ascertain the extent to which these institutions have implemented entrepreneurial education for mitigating unemployment in Nigeria, using the University of Calabar as a case study. A combination of structured questionnaires, titled students’ Opinion Questionnaire and review of extant literatures and theoretical framework, was used for the study. The resulting data showed that the tertiary institutions have not significantly contributed to mitigating unemployment through entrepreneurial education, judging from the low students’ acquisition of entrepreneurial skills, their limited exposure to business opportunities and difficulty in sourcing funds to ensure utilization of any acquired skills after graduation.

Crude Oil Price Fluctuation and Unemployment Nexus in Nigeria: Evidence from VECM Technique

The main objective of this paper is to examine the impact of crude oil fluctuation on the rate of unemployment in Nigeria using data for the period of 1991 to 2018 and employed VECM to realize the objective. The outcome from the VECM estimation revealed that population and economic growths were positive and significantly associated with unemployment while crude oil price and electricity consumption have significant negative sign with unemployment in the long-run but in the short-run only population growth was significant and positively signed with unemployment. From the granger causality, one-way causality runs from population growth to unemployment; economic growth to unemployment; crude oil price to unemployment; population growth to economic growth; crude oil price to population growth; crude oil price to economic growth; electricity consumption to economic growth. Variance decomposition indicate that population growth responded highly to shock in unemployment whereas impulse response function revealed that unemployment responded positively to shocks in economic growth and crude oil price while negatively to population growth and electricity consumption. Therefore, among the recommendations include population checking measures should be a long-term one, making strategies that provide and encourages greater continued economic growth, redirecting excess crude oil accounts earnings into areas of education, employment encouraging plans, improving healthcare services and infrastructure development plan. Lastly, supervising the activities of Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) in order to ensure constant supply of electricity to the industrial and domestic sectors would help in providing solution to the increasing rate of unemployment in Nigeria.

Entrepreneurial Development as a Panacea to Graduate Unemployment in Nigeria

This study empirically examines the concept of Entrepreneurial Development as a panacea to graduate unemployment in Nigeria, adopting the multi-stage sampling technique; primary data were obtained from 360 respondents comprising lecturers and students of Niger Delta University Amassoma, Bayelsa State Nigeria, by means of structured questionnaires. Data reliability, testing and analysis were conducted using Cronbach’s Alpha and Chi-square statistical tools respectively, The study revealed a positive and significant relationship between the development of adequate entrepreneurship curricula in Nigeria tertiary institutions and the production of innovative entrepreneurs, equally, the study suggests that the teaching of entrepreneurship courses in tertiary institutions is positively correlated with the development of self-sufficient graduates who possess employability attributes which invariably culminates in overall economic development. Thus, it is recommended that government in conjunction with the management of tertiary institutions should fashion out sustainable policies and programmes to inculcate and promote entrepreneurship education into the consciousness of the teeming undergraduates.

Causal Relationship between Renewable Energy Consumption and Unemployment in Nigeria: Evidence from Toda and Yamamoto Causality Technique

The paper examines the causal association among renewable energy consumption and unemployment in Nigeria for the sample of 1991-2015 periods via the technique of Toda and Yamamoto causality. The outcome of the long-run causality specifies that bidirectional causality exist between renewable energy consumption and unemployment; foreign direct investment and renewable energy consumption; investments and renewable energy consumption; credit to private sector and renewable energy consumption; foreign direct investments and investments; credit to private sector and investments with unidirectional causality among investments and unemployment; credit to private sector and unemployment. This suggests that higher consumption of energy from renewable sources will go a long way in providing the long-lasting solution to the problems of unemployment in the country. It is therefore recommended that Nigerian government should put more efforts on increasing production and consumption of energy from renewable source as it has the tendency of decreasing the rate of unemployment in the long-run and barriers in the form of higher cost of acquisition and taxes on the production and consumption of energy from the renewable sources should be completely eliminated in order to increase the rate of investments in renewable energy technologies and subsequently create employments.

Job Creation and Decent Work in Oyo State Nigeria

Employment generation is the single most-critical economic challenge facing the world today. Job creation is on the agenda of many governments and Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) emphasises productive employment and decent work for all.1 The critical question to ask is: How decent are the jobs created through Social Investment Program (SIP) in addressing graduate unemployment in Nigeria? It is against this backdrop that this study sets out to examine how jobs created through the N-Power programme in Oyo State promote decent work. Primary data, using a structured questionnaire and focused group discussions were used to address the questions based on the four dimensions of decent work furnished by the International Labour Organisation (ILO). The study adopted a multi-stage random sampling technique and administered 376 questionnaires to N-Power program beneficiaries; this was supported by two-focused group discussion. Descriptive statistics and content analysis were used to analyse the data generated. Results show that the SIPs addressed the issue of unemployment but the job cannot be termed decent because of lack of job security, right of work and social dialogue. The study, therefore, recommends that the conditions of engaging graduates should be reviewed in terms of salary structure and period of engagement. There could be the inclusion of some basic rights at work during their engagement and the tenure should be increased from two to three years with the option of engaging some of the beneficiaries as full-term staff at the Federal and State level based on specific criteria that the beneficiaries will meet. Start-up capital/quality equipment should be given to those who prefer to be on their own as a young entrepreneur.

Chemistry Education and Diversification of Nigerian Economy: A Remedy to National Youth Unemployment

The issue of graduate unemployment in Nigeria has become a national concern as the unemployed youths become restless. This situation has not only posed a great challenge to the economy but also retarded the economic growth of the country. The reality is that the government and the organized private sectors cannot absorb the graduates of these institutions The graduate unemployment problem has generated several other socio-economic problems in the country manifesting in the following: militancy in the Niger Delta, political thuggery among youths, increased rate of armed robbery, kidnapping and Boko Haram. Nigeria is a mono-economy nation; the economy depends mainly on crude oil. The fluctuating oil price seriously affects the Nigerian economy. The government which has been the highest employer of labor cannot offer jobs to unemployed youths. A possible solution to this problem is for the Nigerian government to diversify its national economy. Diversification presents the most competitive and strategic option for Nigeria in light of her developmental challenges and given her background. The importance of creativity and innovation through teaching chemistry entrepreneurship skills has been recognized as a panacea for unemployment among youth. Nigeria's innovative capacity and the development of a creative and knowledge-intensive economy and society can be achieved through reinforcing the role and training of graduates in the knowledge of entrepreneur skills and focusing course curricula on creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurship. It is hereby recommended that emphasis should be laid on chemistry entrepreneurial skills and functional educational technology such as design, production, and modernization of indigenous resources among students through practices and innovations for achieving self-reliant generate.

Application of triple-helix model to address the issue of unemployment challenge in Nigeria

Triple-helix model (THM) establishes a working relationship between government, industry and university in order to solve diverse issues of human endeavours. The study aims to use THM to address the issue of unemployment with specific focus on agricultural sector in Nigeria. The study is premised on quantitative techniques. Two thousand questionnaires were administered on potential unemployed graduates in Nigeria. One hundred and twenty questionnaires were administered on four financial institutions and 100 questionnaires were administered on ministries, parastatals and agencies (MDAs) in Nigeria. Information elicited from respondents was processed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) and Number Cruncher Statistical System (NCSS). The findings of the study revealed that unemployed graduates are keenly interested in embarking on agricultural activities, if enabling environment is provided. The study therefore recommends that enabling environment should be provided to reduce unemployment in Nigeria.

INFLATION AND UNEMPLOYMENT RELATIONSHIP: A DYNAMIC REPORT OF NIGERIA AND MEXICO IN THE PERSPECTIVE OF PHILLIPS CURVE FROM 1991-2016

This research study investigated the relationship between unemployment and inflation in Nigeria and Mexico from 1991-2016. Secondary data were used to gather data from the World Bank database, Central Bank of Nigeria and Bank of Mexico. In order to determine the set objective, OLS and simple regression analysis of the econometric model were used. The models specified inflation as function unemployment, money supply % GDP, total Gross Formation Products. Based on the above test carried out, the study finds out that: Inflation significantly has little impact on unemployment in Nigeria both in the long – run and short – run within the period under review. In Mexico, there is actually no significant relationship between unemployment and inflation because when inflation is high, unemployment in Mexico is also high. The study shows that investors have an inverse relationship with unemployment in Mexico. There is also an inverse relationship between inflation and GDP in Mexico and Nigeria. And in regard to the findings above the study recommends that the government should use discretionary policy that would reduce unemployment by boosting the level of investment and maintaining stability in the money sup-ply as it had a positive impact on Inflation in the long run. Friedman is of the view that the increase in government spending and the rate at which economy borrows, the higher the inflation.

An Examination of the Causes of Unemployment among Youths in Nigeria

The rising youth unemployment in Nigeria is indeed disturbing as engagements of unemployed youths in armed robbery, kidnapping, Boko Haram, prostitution and other related social ills in Nigerian society are attributed to high rate of unemployment. The stated involvement in crimes by the unemployed youths does not only constitute social problems to the entire society but obstructs the development of the country. The main objective of this paper is to examine causes of youth unemployment in Nigeria as it relates mostly to moral bankruptcy in public leadership. Secondary sources were being used as the data for this study and it sets its analysis in the context of the neoliberal theory. The results of this study revealed that youth unemployment is caused mainly by corruption among the public office holders that has led to the degrading nature of infrastructures, security, and neglect of agriculture. This study therefore recommends among other things that Nigerian government ought to make its educational system self-reliance for the youths through the introduction of vocational and technical courses. Above all, Nigerian government should insist that its society has the enabling environment for business activities to thrive and that may as well accommodate investors and other businesses globally.

Public Perception of Vocational and Technical Education and Youth Unemployment in Nigeria

Public Perception of Vocational and Technical Education and Youth Unemployment in Nigeria

Violent Crime and Unemployment in Nigeria: An ARDL Bound Test Cointegration.

This study attempts to examine whether there is a long-run relationship existing between crime rates and unemployment in Nigeria for the period 2004 to 2016. The autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) bounds testing approach was used to determine the cointegration between unemployment and crime rates. The results show that unemployment and crime (murder, armed robbery, robbery, assaults, sexual offense, and cultism) are cointegrated. The empirical findings show that the unemployment rate and violent crime, such as; armed robbery, robbery-murder, assaults, sex violence, and cultism are all cointegrated. The long-run coefficients results indicated that the unemployment rate has a positive and significant effect on murder, sex violence, assaults, and cultism

Revisiting the Trade and Unemployment Nexus: Empirical Evidence from the Nigerian Economy

The recent exacerbation of unemployment crisis in Nigeria stands to be a serious threat to both socio-economic stability and progress of the country just as the report from the nation’s bureau of statistics shows that at least over 8.5 million people had no gainful employment at all as at the last quarter of the year 2017. It is on the above premise, that the present study explores the link between trade and unemployment for the case of Nigeria with the intention of exploring how the unemployment crisis has been impacted within the dynamics of the country’s trade performance. The empirical evidence shows that the nation’s terms of trade were insignificant to unemployment rate while trade openness and domestic investment, on the other hand, have significant opposing impacts on unemployment in Nigeria over the period of the study. Further breakdowns from the empirical analysis also revealed that the Philips curves proposition is valid within the Nigerian economic context while the evidences for the validity of Okun’s law only exist in the short-run scenario. Based on the empirical results, we recommend that concerted effort should be geared toward stimulating domestic investment by providing adequate financial and infrastructural facilities that will promote ease of doing business while utmost precautions are taken to ensure that unemployment crisis is not exacerbated when combating inflation in the economy in the wake of dynamic trade relations.

Enhancing the effectiveness of entrepreneurship education: the role of entrepreneurial lecturers

Purpose Despite the inclusion of entrepreneurship education (EE) in the curricula of tertiary education institutions in Nigeria, graduate unemployment is still an issue of serious concern. This calls into question the effectiveness of EE in influencing students’ entrepreneurial intentions (EIs) and behaviours. Perhaps, the issue is with the EE lecturers. The questions, which should be answered include: are the lecturers who teach EE entrepreneurially inclined? Can lecturers who are not entrepreneurially inclined teach students to become entrepreneurs? The purpose of this paper, therefore, is to empirically explore the role of entrepreneurial lecturers in the relationship between EE and students’ EIs. Design/methodology/approach This study adopted a quantitative approach. Thus, a self-reported questionnaire was administered to a randomly selected sample of 256 Higher National Diploma II students of the Federal Polytechnic, Idah, Nigeria, who were exposed to EE. To analyse the data collected, partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) was performed using SmartPLS 2.0.M3 software. Findings Data analysis showed a significantly positive relationship between EE and students’ EIs on the one hand and between EE and perceived entrepreneurial lecturers (PELs) on the other hand. It was also found that PELs had a significantly positive link with students’ EIs. Further analysis indicated that PELs had a mediating effect on the relationship between EE and students’ EIs. Research limitations/implications This study was a single institutional study. Thus, the generalisability of its findings to other institutions is limited. Extending the research to other institutions and countries might be required to validate the findings presented. Practical implications This research work has some insightful implications for the teaching of EE. By implication, it provides an answer to the question: who should teach EE? To achieve greater impact of EE on students’ EIs and behaviours, entrepreneurial lecturers are required. It implies that EE lecturers should be entrepreneurially inclined. They should demonstrate sufficient entrepreneurial attitudes, intentions and behaviours. Social implications It has been argued that graduate unemployment constitutes a social problem to the society. In this regard, the suggestions made in this paper, if applied, would help resolve the problem of graduate unemployment in Nigeria and other countries. Originality/value This study is the first to provide empirical evidence of the role of entrepreneurial lecturers in the relationship between EE and students’ EIs. It has demonstrated that entrepreneurial lecturers could transfer the influence of EE to students’ EIs. Also, it has confirmed that EE lecturers are critical in the EE-students’ EIs relationship. Overall, this study makes a significant contribution to the discussion on how to enhance the effectiveness of EE in influencing students’ EIs and behaviours.

The Validity of Okun’s Law: An Empirical Evidence for Nigeria

This paper empirically investigates the relationship between economic growth and unemployment in Nigeria under the Okun’s Law framework. The Auto Regressive Distributed Lag model approach, the ARDL Bounds Test and Cointegration Test were employed in this paper. Economic Growth was also regressed on unemployment, log of industrial output, log of net foreign assets, log of foreign direct investment and population growth so as to know the impact of these variables on output. The research findings indicated that high the Okun’s specification does not hold in the Nigeria, the impact of economic growth on unemployment is negative and insignificant. We did however find that there is a positive impact of unemployment on economic growth, meaning that the phenomena of jobless growth may be in play in the economy. The Johansen Co-integration test failed to establish evidence of long run relationship between GDP, industrial output, unemployment, foreign direct investment net foreign assets and population growth. The ECM could not be employed because the variables were integrated of different orders. It was however found there exist a significant positive relationship between the aforementioned variables and GDP except for population growth. The government should consider the Industrial Sector as a priority sector in a bid for better economic growth and development. Population control measures should also be put in play to ensure that the population does not exceed the economic carrying capacity. The government should also play an important role in abating unemployment in the economy using direct and indirect schemes and strategies.

Financial Deepening and Unemployment in Nigeria: A Causal Analysis

This study examined the causal relationship between financial deepening and unemployment in Nigeria from 1981 to 2015. Using secondary data obtained from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) 2015 and from the World Development Indicators published by the World Bank, the study specifically examined the effect of financial deepening variables (ratio of credit to private sector to GDP, ratio of broad money to GDP and ratio of market capitalization to GDP) on Unemployment. The Error Correction Model (ECM) and Granger Causality Test were employed in the analysis and it was found that Credit to Private Sector and Broad money supply reduced unemployment implying that as more people gain access to finance, more job creating investments will be established to employ more people thereby reducing unemployment while Market Capitalization was not significant to influence Unemployment. In the long run all the variables were jointly found to influence unemployment and causality was found to be unidirectional flowing from financial deepening to unemployment. Among other recommendations, this study recommended that the Monetary Authority and the Government should make credit available to the citizenry especially the poor and the vulnerable. Keywords: Financial deepening, Unemployment, Credit to Private Sector, Market Capitalization, Broad Money Supply. DOI : 10.7176/JRDM/58-07 Publication date : August 31 st 2019