TRACKING UNEMPLOYMENT THROUGH ECONOMIC GROWTH, EXPORT & FDI INFLOWS IN NIGERIA: AN APPLICATION OF BOUND TEST APPROACH

The sluggish pace of African countries in the global integration process has attracted the attention of various government towards implementing far reaching market-oriented policies that would enlarge the scope of export, foreign direct investment flows, economic growth and reduces unemployment rate. Studies have shown that unemployment constitute a menace and growth drag in Nigeria. However, unemployment is sustained due to stumpy domestic productivity, epileptic electricity supply, low capacity utilization rate and unattractive government policies at bringing foreign capitals in the form of FDI. This paper therefore, used the Autoregressive Distributed lag (ARDL) bounds test analytical technique to establish the relationship between economic growth, export and FDI inflows on unemployment in Nigeria during the period 1970-2015. The findings of the study, conforms with the general trend in the literature. Real GDP and real FDI inflow have significantly reduced unemployment rate in Nigeria, while real export has aggravated it. This paper, therefore recommends pragmatic policies at stimulating domestic production and attracting FDI inflow.