The present study seeks to examine the impact of economic globalisation on youth unemployment for 50 African countries between the period 1994 and 2013. In addition to the economic globalisation measurements, the present study controlled the variables that represent the fluctuations in economic activates; demographic changes, a country’s economic size; the quality of governmental institutions; and labour market regulation. The results of the Arellano-Bond (A-B) GMM technique showed that greater openness to global markets would reflect in a lower youth unemployment rate. Furthermore, the results revealed that rigidity in labour market regulations seemed to reduce the youth unemployment rate. In addition, urbanisation seemed to raise the youth unemployment rate. The findings supported contemporary calls to participate in international trade to facilitate the job creation process.

Malaysia plans to emerge as one of the high-income economies by 2020 through the Economic Transformation Programme. A key component of this programme is to adopt more trade liberalisation policies that can generate a variety of economic activities, particularly more jobs. Although the integration with the world market bears the promise of prosperity for the developing and transitional economies, such integration may also adversely affect such economies. Preceding studies regarding labour market and international trade policies are still inconclusive and raise questions that require further examination; particularly in terms of whether exposure to the external sector can create or destroy jobs. The present study evaluates how Malaysia labour market has responded to the economic globalisation of the country. The study focuses on the long-run impact of economic globalisation on unemployment within the period between 1980 and 2014. The study uses autoregressive distributive lags method to examine the pattern of the relationship. The results show that economic globalisation have significant and positive impact on reducing unemployment in Malaysia in the long run. These findings indicate that policy-makers in Malaysia should facilitate the economy globalisation to maintain the current low level of unemployment rate.