This year we wanted to do something different. Yes, we are good at talking and yes, our nation should absolutely continue talking about the things that drive us crazy and that make us fall in love with Mzansi over again.

But is it possible to move the needle a bit more? And if we could, where would we add our weight in finding the fixes we so desperately need?

At the beginning of the year, we partnered with Ipsos to conduct a representative poll on South Africa’s biggest challenges. South Africa answered loud and clear: unemployment was the single largest issue holding us back.

This came as no surprise. At 32%, we have one of the largest unemployment rates in the world. And even if the number came down when you added the informal sector, the scale and level of poverty and underdevelopment is undeniable.

We simply don’t have a sustainable, peaceful and prosperous future if we don’t break the cycle of poverty and unemployment.

A job, we believe, changes your life. It gives you agency, freedom and independence. It gives you a chance to break out of the vicious cycle of state dependency.

So, we decided to dedicate the next News24 On the Record summit to finding solutions to our biggest national problem: unemployment. There are incredibly smart people in- and outside South Africa who have done much work on this, but their ideas and solutions are often not widely heard and discussed. Sometimes the devil is in the detail!

Our process will culminate in the News24 On the Record Summit from 19–20 March 2026 at the Cape Town International Convention Centre in Cape Town.

We spoke to some smart people who crunch economic data for a living to get to an ambitious but achievable target. How many jobs are we looking at creating over the next decade to make a serious dent in employment, and the country’s trajectory?

This is where we landed: to thrive, the country needs to create 5 million new formal sector jobs in the next ten years. It is our generational challenge.

Unemployment and inequality lead to social instability, political radicalisation and criminality. The state does not have the funds to create millions of jobs but can contribute other assets – physical and regulatory.

We need faster economic growth, with purpose, to create employment and diminish poverty in all its guises. We need those blockages to a better future and work on removing them. That’s worth talking about.

This is an open invitation to all South Africans to suggest practical ways to create jobs and build a better, more equal and healthy society as News24’s contribution to the National Dialogue.