Unemployment and Inflation: Implication on Poverty Level in Nigeria

This study is carried out to empirically examine the implication of unemployment and inflation on poverty level in Nigeria from 1980-2014. Three variables are used in this paper which are Poverty level, Unemployment Rate and Inflation Rate. The variables were subjected to unit root test and they were all stationary at first difference I(1). Using the Johansen test, the variables were found to be co-integrated at 5% level of significance. Vector Auto Regressive (VAR) Model was used to determine the short-run relationship between the variables and the forth lag was selected based on the lag selection criterion. Forecast Error Variance Decomposition (FEVD) was obtained using the cholesky decomposition of the VAR residual. The result obtained showed the proportion of the variations in Poverty, inflation and unemployment rate attributed to their respective lag values. Granger causality test was carried out from the VAR model, and the result indicated that there is a bi-causality between inflation and poverty. There is two-way causality between unemployment rate and poverty. There is one-way causality between unemployment rate and inflation rate. From the conclusion, it recommended that since unemployment causes poverty in Nigeria, government should review the education curriculum which will include practical skill acquisition programme in the educational system so as to produce graduates that are employers of labour rather than employment seekers. The government should give incentives to producers to enable them increase domestic production which will bring down price level. Nigerian government should strive to reduce poverty level by formulating and implementing poverty reduction programme like social security which will reduce inflation and unemployment rate and will lead to economic growth.