What's the normal retirement age?

Fake news articles suggesting that South Africa was implementing a new standard retirement age policy, supposedly from May 30 this year, recently went viral on social media.

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Convincingly structured to look realistic, the articles suggested that 65 is the new universal standard retirement age for all employees across all sectors. Law firm Meyer, Van Sittert and Kropman quotes the law.

Age discrimination is "automatically unfair", and any employer found to be guilty of it by unlawfully forcing an employee to retire early faces a compensation order of up to 24 months' remuneration (double the normal award for a run-of-the-mill unfair dismissal), re-instatement or re-employment.

There is, however, an escape clause there for employers: A dismissal based on age is fair if the employee has reached the normal or agreed retirement age for persons employed in that capacity.

Even where a dismissal itself is fair, you must still follow a fair process in implementing it. It's an important topic, with increasing numbers of employees wanting to (or needing to) work into their 70s. A recent Labour Court ruling showing those principles in action is well worth taking note of.

The plumber forced to retire