The Effectiveness of Agricultural Sector in Reducing Unemployment in Nigeria

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Abstract

This study examined the effectiveness of agricultural sector output in reducing unemployment in Nigeria using time series data from 1980-2018. Agricultural sector output was disaggregated to crop, fishery, forestry and livestock to examine the sector that contributes more to employment generation in Nigeria. The study analysed data using vector error correction granger causality/block exogeneity Wald tests to understand the direction of causality among variables. Although, trend analysis shows that crop subsector contributes more to output, causality could not be established for each of the subsectors. The study recommends policy measures that would make agriculture more attractive to the teaming youthful population, facilitate domestic consumption of agricultural produce rather than exporting raw products and importing finished goods.