ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND UNEMPLOYMENT IN NIGERIA
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Abstract
This study examines the impact of entrepreneurship development, encompassingentrepreneurship training, ease of doing business, digital entrepreneurship, and institutionalquality, on unemployment from 1990 to 2024. Using time-series data from the National Bureau ofStatistics, the World Bank Development Indicators, the National Information TechnologyDevelopment Agency, and the Central Bank of Nigeria, the study employs multiple regressionanalysis, complemented by diagnostic tests for normality, serial correlation, heteroskedasticity,and model specification. Results reveal that government expenditure on entrepreneurship trainingsignificantly reduces unemployment, while improvements in the ease of doing business exert apositive but weaker effect. Digital entrepreneurship emerges as a strong negative predictor ofunemployment, underscoring the employment potential of Nigeria’s growing digital economy. Incontrast, institutional quality shows no statistically significant relationship with unemployment,highlighting the persistence of governance and infrastructural gaps. The findings underscore theneed for sustained investment in entrepreneurial capacity building, digital skills development, andinstitutional reforms to harness the full job-creating potential of entrepreneurship in Nigeria.