The study “entitled Poverty and Unemployment in Nigeria” is crucial to the development of the Nigerian
economy. The relevance of the present study well from the fact that, that Nigeria is ranked 158th on the human
development index is unacceptable. The study employed incidence of poverty as a function of unemployment,
agricultural, manufacturing and services contributions to real GDP, population and inflation rate in which the
growth rate of the variables were modeled. The results of the study revealed that unemployment, agricultural and
services contributions to real GDP as well as population have positive determining influence on poverty level in
Nigeria with only agricultural sector statistically insignificant. On the other hand, manufacturing sector
contribution to real GDP and inflation rate exhibited negative relationship on poverty level in Nigeria with only
manufacturing sector appearing significant. The study recommended among other things, that holistic effort
should be made by governments at all levels to create jobs and arrest unemployment.