It's official: SA now has the highest unemployment rate among 82 countries tracked by Bloomberg. Stats SA figures for the three months to the end of June show fewer than 38 out of every 100 South Africans of working age had a job.
Put another way, 7.8-million people were jobless, and if one adds those who have given up looking for work, the total is close to a staggering 12-million people.
And this in a country with the world's richest mineral deposits, a world-class agricultural sector, and limitless tourism potential.
Yet here we sit with an unemployment rate so high that it would trigger a social explosion in less placid countries. How has it come to this? And is there a way out?
Inevitably, we will hear calls on the government to do something, anything, to fix the problem. And inevitably, we will be told the government alone can't create jobs, and that the private sector, and labour, the so-called social partners, must also contribute.
There is some truth in this, but the more important truth is that the government's primary responsibility is to create an environment that is conducive to businesses making major investments that will create the skilled jobs upon which to build a middle-class society that enjoys reasonable prosperity and economic security. It has to inspire confidence.
In other countries where the government cannot convince business of its support, that government is liable to be voted out. This is highly unlikely in SA in the near future, so it is incumbent on the government to take extra steps to get the economy firing again.
President Cyril Ramaphosa has presided over several high-profile attempts to attract billions in new investment into SA, and although the pledges to invest are welcome, it's clear more has to be done.
It's fine to have investment-friendly policies on the macro level. But it has become the rule rather than the exception when businesses have to quit rural towns, leaving people jobless, as service delivery collapses because of corruption and infighting.
It is said the state must provide an enabling environment for business; in SA's case, the government must go much further and create an environment that is encouraging and explicitly welcoming for business and investors.
The consensus among economists is that Ramaphosa must preside over structural reforms, including but not limited to changes to labour laws, reforms of state-owned companies, which are saddled with high wage bills and unproductive workforces; and fiscal reforms that will cut government debt and free up more money for fixed investment and infrastructure.
It's incontrovertible that the thrust of policy has been towards the formal, first-world sector of the economy.
But even with a flood of local and foreign investment, there will still be millions without a formal-sector job. For this reason the government needs to investigate more enthusiastically how it can unleash the power of the informal sector, which is almost certainly under measured, but which has great potential for growth.
Pavement entrepreneurs must be given the opportunity to start small businesses of their own, and the rapidly growing gig economy must also be supported, with training and finance. Too often, our micro-entrepreneurs, many of them women, are harassed by the authorities, and it's as if every possible obstacle must be put in their way.
Some factions within the ANC send out mixed messages to business, treating the private sector like an enemy when they can't make do without business. Is it asking too much of the ANC to embrace business, and to rather see it as a partner in development than as a reluctant sidekick that has to be watched with a jaundiced eye?
The world owes us nothing, businesses owe us nothing: we need to be able to put up an "Open for Business" sign that says, welcome, pay your taxes and stick to our laws and we'll go out of our way to make your stay a long and profitable one.
Right now, we're putting out the welcome mat, but the drawbridge that connects lofty promises to actual delivery remains stuck up in the air. It's time to lower it, for all of SA.
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