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1,000 signatures reached
To: President of the Republic of South Africa, Parliament of South Africa, Department of employment and Labour, Department of social development
Give people between 36-59yrs work opportunities. End age based exclusion!
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We, men and women aged 36 to 59, are struggling to find jobs. We have families to feed. We are parents. We are breadwinners. We are taxpayers. We are voters. Yet when we try to find work, we are told we are “too old” to work, “too old” for opportunity, “too old” for temporary jobs, “too old” for development programmes.
This is why we are asking you to please stop excluding us from job opportunities.
We are not statistics. We are not leftovers. We are not invisible.
We built this country. We raised this nation’s children. We contribute daily.
We demand:
- Review and remove unfair age caps on public employment, EPWP, skills development, and temporary job programmes. Where age criteria exist, they must be reasonably justified and not blanket exclusions of ages 36-59.
- Create targeted economic inclusion programmes for unemployed persons aged 36-59 who are breadwinners and caregivers.
- Enforce Section 9 by monitoring age discrimination in hiring for state-funded and private-sector programmes.
- Recognise our economic role in all social relief and job creation policy planning.
Why is this important?
Minister of Labour and Employment, Nkosizana Meth, stated in an interview that there is no law that allows people to be excluded from jobs because of their age [1]. She went on to quote section 6(1) of the Employment Equity Act, which prohibits unfair discrimination. Yet we are constantly excluded [2].
We therefore ask:
- How can equality exist when an entire working-age group is locked out of economic opportunities?
- How can dignity survive when South Africans are treated as disposable at 36?
- How can social security be real when age-based cutoffs exclude breadwinners from relief and upskilling?
We are not fighting against the youth. We are fighting against exclusion. We are fighting against policies that forget us. We are fighting for fairness.
The forgotten generation is rising. We will not be ignored.
Join the campaign because this age exclusion affects us all, even those who are still under the age of 35; the majority of 35 and under are there, and there are those who are not working, who are in learnerships, who are still casuals. By 2029, others will be 36,38 years, still not permanent.
Every year, a person grows by 1; we end up depending on our mothers' and fathers' social grants, which are not enough for the family, as everything is very expensive nowadays.
References
1. Jobs cannot be denied to South Africans aged 34-50, says Labour Minister by Mthobisi Nozulela for IOL, 07 January 2026. https://iol.co.za/business/2026-01-07-jobs-cannot-be-denied-to-south-africans-aged-3450-says-labour-minister/
2. Employment Equity Act, No. 55 of 1998. https://www.labour.gov.za/DocumentCenter/Acts/Employment%20Equity/Act%20-%20Employment%20Equity%201998.pdf