This paper aims to examine the Algerian economy by applying Okun’s law to study the impact of real GDP on unemployment rates and examine the impact of labour market protection policies on Okun’s coefficients. The annual data on the Algerian economy for the period 1991–2019 were used. The autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) bounds testing technique model was used in conjunction with the gap version for Okun’s coefficients. The empirical results show that Okun’s law operates in Algeria’s economy. Coefficients estimated using the gap version led to the conclusion that there was a negative and significant impact of the GDP gap on unemployment rates. Though there was a decline in unemployment as GDP increased, the rise in employment was very weak for each 1% increase in the GDP. These findings should be of significant interest to regulators and policymakers in the Algerian economy, practitioners and academic researchers, international and national investors, managers and any other groups interested in the labour market in the Algerian economy and the labour markets of other developing economies. The paper provides the real GDP’s effect on unemployment rates in Algeria by releasing the gap version for Okun’s coefficient. Also, it provides evidence that increased labour market protection mitigates the adverse effects of a decrease in output growth rate on employment.

Summary The aim of this study was to determine the influence of social media on students’ awareness of responsible behaviour during the COVID-19 pandemic. The field study was carried out with a sample of 726 students from Northern Border University. Data were collected from electronically retrieved questionnaires via various communication channels and analysed using hierarchical linear regression. The study found a relationship between the use of social media sites and awareness among students, affected by age differences. With the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, universities face the challenge of ensuring precautionary guidelines to prevent the virus are followed while educating their students, and social media plays a significant role in disseminating this information. Therefore, studying how social media helps develop students’ awareness can contribute to addressing some of the problems faced by decisionmakers in Saudi universities.

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