NADA has launched the Motoring Mavericks initiative to combat youth unemployment.
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With youth unemployment a pressing issue in South Africa, the National Automobile Dealers’ Association (NADA) has launched a new initiative aimed at shifting perceptions around careers in the automotive retail space.
Called Motoring Mavericks, the campaign positions dealerships as more than just sales floors and workshops but highlights their role as business environments where a range of skills, from marketing to finance and digital systems, are increasingly in demand.
Modern dealerships operate as full-scale enterprises. Alongside vehicle sales and servicing, they rely on customer experience teams, HR departments, finance divisions and digital platforms to function efficiently.
This opens career paths that extend beyond the traditional roles. Young professionals can now pursue opportunities as Finance & Insurance (F&I) specialists, marketing executives, business managers or service technicians, all within the same dealership ecosystem.
“As South Africa continues to battle high youth unemployment, we want to open young people’s eyes to the real career opportunities inside the automotive retail space,” says NADA director Ashley Samuel.
South Africa’s dealership network remains a central pillar of the automotive sector. According to Naamsa, the Automotive Business Council, dealers facilitated the bulk of the 596,818 new vehicles sold locally in 2025.
That scale translates into sustained demand for skilled staff across multiple disciplines, particularly as new vehicle brands enter the market and digital transformation accelerates across the retail environment.
A central focus of the Motoring Mavericks campaign is to provide practical insight into how young people can enter and grow within the sector. The initiative showcases real-life stories from professionals already working in dealerships, detailing their career paths and progression.
Through short-form video content and interviews, sales executives, technicians, marketers and finance specialists share their experiences, offering a clearer picture of what the industry looks like from the inside.
Motoring Mavericks will roll out across platforms including TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook and LinkedIn, reflecting a deliberate push to engage younger audiences in familiar digital spaces.