The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development and the Chartered Management Institute have published an in-depth study on ageism and retirement.

It found that age discrimination was still common and that managers and personnel officers admit to discriminating against workers on the grounds of age.

Next autumn it will become a criminal offence for employers to discriminate against workers on grounds of age.

Stakeholder Response: Help the Aged

Kate Jopling, senior public affairs officer at Help the Aged, said: "This research confirms the shocking levels of age discrimination which exist in the UK today.

"At Help the Aged we hear all too often from older people whose lives have been blighted by ageist attitudes and practices, not just at work but in every aspect of their lives. 

"As the population ages, employers and government alike are going to have to face the fact that our economy will increasingly depend on an older workforce.

"Older workers must feel that they have the opportunity to continue working as long as they feel able or wish to do so - age discrimination is a major barrier to older people exercising that choice.

"While legislation to ban age discrimination in the workplace is very welcome, it must be backed up through the work of a strong and well-resourced Commission for Equality and Human Rights to enforce the legislation and promote culture change in the employment field."

Stakeholder Response: CIPD

A spokesman for the CIPD said: "Our research found that discrimination was not always against older workers.

"While 25 per cent of managers said their job applications had suffered discrimination because they were too old, 23 per cent said they thought it was because they were too young.

"Even so, the results from this survey show some considerable improvement from a similar survey carried out 10 years ago.

"Then, the proportion of managers and personnel officers who claimed to have been passed over because they were too old was much higher, at 44 per cent.

"Mind sets will need to change fast if employers are to escape the sanctions of new regulations which are scheduled to come into force in October 2006.

"The regulations, outlined in July, will make age discrimination at work illegal. They are being brought in to comply with the European employment directive.

"The new rules will ban age discrimination in recruitment, promotion and training. They will ban all retirement ages below 65, unless they can be objectively justified.

"And the regulations will also remove the current upper age limits for unfair dismissal and redundancy rights.

"Our survey found that 29 per cent of employers have now removed mandatory retirement ages for staff.

"This is very pleasing, but organisations realise there is lot more work to be done."