Retirement Age is an age in which employees can no longer able to do their work. However, most companies and institutions do impose a retirement age, although there is no mandatory retirement age.
For retirement age, there is no standard and it has become more and more inconsistent. Seventy years is the retirement age of the federal government and these days, many of the companies and institutions have a retirement age of sixty-five.
Although sixty-five is the minimum age for collecting full Social Security benefits and is steadily escalating to age sixty-seven, at the age of sixty-two, most employees or workers start to collect their Social Security benefits,.
Studies of retirement preparedness typically assume that workers will retire at a fixed age, usually 62 or 65. However, the timing of retirement is largely a matter of choice, and studies that ignore workers' ability to delay retirement tend to overstate the significance of shortfalls in their retirement savings.
The labor legislation does not deal directly with the issue of retirement age. However, it does say that no one may be unfairly discriminated against because of their age. This means that the employer and employee must agree on a retirement age.
There are three possible situations that you could find yourself in:
- Your employment contract requires you to retire at a certain age.
- You have agreed with you employer on a retirement age or there is a company norm.
- There is no mention of retirement in your contract and there is no agreement.
If you sign an employment contract that stipulates a retirement age, then you can legally be required to retire at that age. The organization won't be required to give you notice.
If the retirement age is not in the contract but is agreed or if there is an organizational norm, then the employer can give you notice requiring you to retire at that age.
The notice period will be the same as the notice period for termination of employment set out in your contract of employment.
When would there be deemed to be an organizational norm? There is a general understanding that the "normal" retirement age is 55, 60 or 65 but this understanding is too vague to be useful in specific instances. Indications of the organisation's norm can be found in:
- The rules of a company's provident or pension fund (but this is not definitive)
- Company policy.
If there is no mention of a retirement age in your contract and there is no organizational norm, then you can continue to work until you are unable to do your job properly.
Your employer can only terminate your contract in accordance with the labor legislation (that is for misconduct, operational requirements or incompetence) and will have to follow the procedures set out in your contract and labor law.
The courts have found that it is unfair discrimination for your employer to terminate your employment services just because of your age. There is no legal certainty regarding the rights of an employee who works beyond retirement age.
It is thus advisable for the employer and employee to clearly define the terms of employment after the retirement age, for example how long the employee will continue to work for and what notice is required to terminate the employment.
