UNEMPLOYMENT AND ECONOMIC GROWTH IN NIGERIA

Abstract

This paper is motivated by the worrisome phenomenon of joblessness of thousands of Nigerian youths who are qualified to work but have no job to do. The paper investigated the relationship between unemployment and economic growth in the light of Okun’s law using the autoregressive distributed lagged model ARDL model. Findings revealed that unemployment has positive and insignificant impact on economic growth in Nigeria. The study therefore recommended, that an alternative policy be formulated and applied to the Nigeria unemployment situation. Such a policy should take care of the peculiarities of the unemployment situation in Nigeria since Okun’s law has proved not to be relevant and applicable in Nigeria based on the findings of this study. This study also recommended a well-balanced application of monetary and fiscal policies which should checkmate each other.