IIARD International Institute of Academic Research and Development

WORLD JOURNAL OF INNOVATION AND MODERN TECHNOLOGY (WJIMT )

E-ISSN 2504-4766
P-ISSN 2682-5910
VOL. 8 NO. 5 2024
DOI: 10.56201/wjimt.v8.no5.2024.pg83.94

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Conquering Unemployment Through Opportunities in Digital Economy: An Empirical Study of Nigeria and Kenya

Friday Oko Orji, Ph.D, FMIMPS, Onu, Sebastine Chigozie, Ph.D, FMIMPS, Dr. Ofozoba, Chinonso Anthony, Dr. John Kihaguru Nditu, FMIMPS

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Abstract

The unemployment rates in Nigeria and Kenya, just like most less developed countries have been relatively high, even though the emerging economy referred to as digital economy offers a promising option towards addressing the issue. This has prompted scholars into researching on the issues and potentials in the digital economy, especially through opinion papers. This poses the need for a more empirical approach to investigating matters of optimizing employment in both countries through the digital economy. The study was on conquering unemployment in Nigeria and Kenya through opportunities in digital economy by employing empirical procedures. The study adopted employed descriptive survey design, with two research questions answered. The sample size of 1,000 digital professionals and enthusiasts were selected through the convenient sampling technique. An online structured survey, ‘Unemployment, Digital Skills and Digital Economy Questionnaire (UDSDEQ)’ was deployed for the data collection. Face validation of the instrument was carried out while Cronbach alpha method was used to determine the internal consistency of the instrument, with satisfactory reliability coefficients: 0.76 and 0.89. The data was analyzed using descriptive statistic, specifically the weighted mean and tables. Results revealed among others that the digital skills that must be acquired in order to become gainfully employable in the digital economy are cybersecurity and data privacy skills; digital and social media marketing; augmented reality, virtual reality and animations/video editing; artificial intelligence and machine learning; data science, analysis and visualization, et cetera. With this, the teaming unemployed youths have a clue on the best and salable digital skills to acquire in order to stand any chance of being gainfully employed in the emerging economy. Public-private partnership was envisaged towards addressing the challenges limiting the digi

keywords:

Unemployment, Digital Economy, Digital Skills, Digital Professionals and Enthusiasts, Nigeria, Kenya.

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