The Sustainable Development Goal 8 aims to achieve decent work and productive employment for every woman and man by 2030, which is a goal that cannot be disputed. However, the persistent rise in the unemployment rate has sparked extensive discussion among policymakers, academics, and economists, and the government has been working tirelessly to develop new strategies to counteract the problem in developing nations like Nigeria. While several studies have shown that the growth and development of Nigeria’s stock market have helped create jobs, these researches have focused on the Millennium Development Goals, and its findings may not generalize to the Sustainable Development Goals. It is for this reason that the study was conducted. This research uses proxies for stock market development to analyze the effect of market capitalization, market stock traded, and the all-share index on unemployment in Nigeria over the past three decades (1985–2020). The results from the autoregressive distributed lag bound testing analysis showed that market capitalization, market stock traded, and the all-share index have positive effects on unemployment in the short run and long run. The study suggests that the stock market development had not resulted in the creation of jobs, which may have prevented the persistent rise in youth unemployment in Nigeria. So, the study recommends the improvement of the stock market to provide additional employment opportunities while simultaneously addressing other structural issues in the labor market. Also, the government must maintain steady job growth through measures designed to increase production, with help from rising stock market development.
Cite this article as: Ogunjinmi, O. O., & Ogbekene, I. (2024). Stock market development strategy: A catalyst for attaining the sustainable development goal 8. Journal of Business Administration and Social Studies, 8(1), 11-23.