Supply Chain Digitalisation, Workforce Displacement, and Labour Market Adjustment in Nigerian Logistics: A Political Economy Analysis

This dissertation conducts a political economy analysis of supply chain digitalisation, workforce displacement, and labour market adjustment in the Nigerian logistics sector, generating original theoretical and empirical contributions from the perspectives of workers, firms, trade unions, and government actors across Lagos, Kano, and Port Harcourt. The rapid digitalisation of logistics functions, including automated warehouse management, GPS-based route planning, digital customs processing, and AI-enabled demand forecasting, is transforming the skill requirements and employment structures of the Nigerian logistics workforce. Existing supply chain digitalisation literature focuses predominantly on efficiency and performance gains, neglecting the distributional consequences for workers and the political economy dynamics of adjustment. Drawing on political economy of technology theory, labour market segmentation theory, and supply chain digitalisation literature, the dissertation develops an original Logistics Digitalisation-Labour Adjustment Model proposing that digitalisation generates differentiated displacement effects across skill tiers, with adjustment quality determined by the institutional responsiveness of training systems, collective bargaining structures, and government re-employment policy. A multi-actor mixed-methods design combines quantitative surveys of 300 logistics workers across skill tiers, 15 logistics firm management interviews, 10 trade union focus groups, and qualitative analysis of government digitalisation and labour policy documents. Structural equation modelling, labour market segmentation analysis, and policy discourse analysis are applied. Original contributions include the Logistics Digitalisation-Labour Adjustment Model, empirically differentiated displacement estimates by skill tier, and a political economy governance framework for managing logistics sector digitalisation transitions equitably in Nigeria. Keywords: supply chain digitalisation, workforce displacement, labour market, logistics sector, political economy.