Abstract:
The incidence of unemployment in Nigeria in this 21st century is alarming which resulted to a
high-level corruption in both public and private sectors of the economy. This study examined the
effect of youth unemployment on the economy of Ekiti State with a view of examining both the
rural area and urban Unemployment situation . The primary data was collected using structured
questionnaire. The sample size for the study was 330. Both descriptive and inferential Statistics
were used to analyse the data according to the objectives of the study. From the ANOVA analysis,
it was revealed that unemployment has significant effect on poverty at p-value< 0.05, since the
significant level is 0.002, which is less than the p-value of 0.05. The regression result revealed a
significant positive relationship between employment status and the view that youth
unemployment increases poverty level. A correlation coefficient value of -0.387 at p-value of
0.000 revealed that the higher the employment, the lesser the poverty level. Thus, youth
unemployment within the State is a major contributory factor to an increase in poverty level, an
incidence of social menace. The study concludes that youth unemployment increases the poverty
level of Ekiti people. It also increases social vices in Ekiti State. Youth unemployment acts as a
daunt to the wellbeing of Ekiti State and Youth Unemployment have significant relationship on
productivity. The study recommends that Government, State Directorate of Employment and
Private sector should create more job opportunity to curb the menace of unemployment most
especially in Ekiti State.
