This was after Solidarity began a campaign against Woolworths earlier this month to get it to retract job advertisements it believed discriminated against whites.

It sent the retailer a letter demanding that advertisements exclusively open to "African blacks" or "Africans, coloureds and Indians", be modified so people of all races could be considered.

General secretary Dirk Hermann said the Woolworths' advertisements constituted unfair race discrimination.

In August, the Rapport newspaper reported that SA Airways had lifted a ban on applications by whites for its cadet pilot programme.

Prior to this, the airline's website automatically rejected applications from white men.

Both SAA and Woolworths defended the advertisements, saying they were necessary to bring the companies in line with the country's demographics at certain levels.