UNEMPLOYMENT AND GOVERNMENT POLICIES ON ENTREPRENEURSHIP DEVELOPMENT IN OGUN STATE OF NIGERIA

This study has examined the relationship between the entrepreneurship development policies of the Nigerian government and their significance in reducing the level of unemployment in the country. This objective was pursued by (i) determining if entrepreneurship development policies have any relationship with the reduction of unemployment in Nigeria; (ii) examining the particular entrepreneurship development policies that contributed to employment generation; (iii) Investigating the extent to which entrepreneurship development policies have reduced the rate of unemployment in Nigeria. Ogun States was chosen as areas of study. Entrepreneurship development policies were measured using N-power programs; vocational training policies; and public solar and internet facilities while reduction in Unemployment was measured using the efforts of respondents at getting a new job after they have benefitted from entrepreneurship development policies. Descriptive statistics was employed in analyzing the primary data gathered. Data collection instrument was a structured questionnaire. Purposive sampling technique was employed for the study. The results showed that (i) there is a weak relationship between government policies and unemployment reduction in Ogun State; (ii) vocational training is the particular scheme from government policies which have impacted on unemployment reduction in Ogun State; and (iii) entrepreneurship development policies have not been significant in reducing the rate of unemployment. The study concluded that there exists a positive but weak and insignificant relationship between government policies on entrepreneurship development and unemployment reduction. As a result, we recommend that: (i) government should first make policies that will decentralize power generation and distribution in Nigeria to allow businesses that require electricity to thrive survive; (ii) government should provide adequate technical facilities where potential and trained entrepreneurs and startups can get machineries, equipment for micro and medium scale productions ; (iii) policies on government loans should capture more people who are able to turn the enterprise created to employment generation ventures.