PRODUCTIVITY GROWTH AND UNEMPLOYMENT RATE: NIGERIA IN FOCUS

Nigeria is battling high unemployment, which has become increasingly more devastating following the country over dependent on a single commodity (oil). Widespread corruption has occurred, and there has been a surge in the number of graduates following the increase in the establishment of both public and private polytechnic and universities. Therefore, this study seeks to investigate whether the long-run relationship between productivity growth rate and the unemployment rate is relevant to Nigeria for the period 1991-2016. The Pearson Product Moment Correlation test procedure was applied to determine the association between productivity growth rate and the unemployment rate. The result indicates that there is no significant positive long-run association between productivity growth rate and the unemployment rate(r = .347, n = 26, p = .082). The paper concludes that government economic policies should be geared towards boosting productivity and employment.