Job Absorption Capacity of Nigeria’s Mining and Quarrying Sector

Abstract

The mining and quarrying sector account for 10.6 per cent of the GDP and 0.2 per cent of employment in 2014, according to the records of the National Bureau of Statistics. Relative to the gross value added of the mining and quarrying sector, its contribution to aggregate employment is small. Meanwhile, unemployment is one of the most pressing macroeconomic problems in Nigeria today. It is against this background that the job absorption capacity of the sector was investigated to facilitate job creation policies in the sector. Time series secondary data covering 1981 to 2014 on the rebased Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and sectoral Gross Value Added (GVA) at 2010 constant basic prices, employment, wage rate, inflation rate and interest rate were collected from the National Bureau of Statistics and the Central Bank of Nigeria. Sectoral employment elasticities of growth were measured using Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) regression at α_0.05. Mining and quarrying sectoral elasticity of employment was -0.05, but was not significant. However, there were significant inter-sectoral and inter-temporal relationships on which job creation policies may be based.