Government Expenditure on Agriculture and Its Impact on Unemployment Reduction in Nigeria: 1999 – 2015

Abstract

This study examined government expenditure on agriculture and its impact on unemployment reduction in Nigeria from 1999 - 2015. Time series data was gathered from secondary sources on Unemployment rate, Government Recurrent/Capital Expenditure on agriculture, and Gross Domestic Product from the Central Bank of Nigeria Statistical Bulletin; the National Bureau of Statistics; and the World Bank Trading Economics, for analysis. The coefficient of determination R2 showed an 84.3% change in the unemployment rate in Nigeria is as a result of the changes in government capital and recurrent expenditure as well as economic growth. The F-Statistics showed that a joint impact is full with a value of 8.05% and probability value of 0.3% showed that there is a strong linear dependency existing between unemployment and government expenditure. The result revealed that the relationship between government expenditure and unemployment did not have a significant effect, that is, has no reducing effect on unemployment in Nigeria. The study therefore recommends the federal government intervention in quadrupling of agriculture votes in the annual budget towards the 10% Maputo Declaration of 2003 for enormous progress. This is expected to release funds which all things been equal, should be channeled towards agricultural development hence, unemployment reduction.