Determinants of Unemployment in East African Community Countries

The purpose of this research study is assessing the relationship between unemployment and its determinants for five east Africa community countries i.e., Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda & Burundi. Particularly, discussed are some economic variables and their significant effects especially in the long run. The study variables include; inflation, GDP growth, population growth and foreign direct investments in relation to unemployment. In order to achieve the research objectives, a methodology framework of panel autoregressive distributed-lag (PARDL) is undertaken. The study finds that a long-run relationship exists among all the variables. Moreover, GDP, POPL, and FDI are found significant to interpret the unemployment in the long-run whereas INF is found insignificant to interpret unemployment in the long-run. The findings also reveal that the tradeoff between inflation and unemployment in EACCs is in the short run and not in the long run. This study concludes that foreign direct investment and gross domestic product have negative and significant relationship with unemployment. Population growth has positive and significant relationship with unemployment and it contributes to unemployment while inflation rate has a positive and insignificant relationship with unemployment. According to the findings of this study population growth is the key determinant of unemployment in EACCs.