It's now a year since the introduction of the age discrimination legislation.  However, from recent surveys (and commonsense, in my opinion) it's clear that discrimination in the workplace still exists.

The REC published some findings from the "Employers Forum on Age" which showed that  "59% of workers have witnessed age discrimination in the last year."  although on a positive note 86% of people knew that it is illegal to discriminate on the grounds of age.

Sadly, only today, I had an example of this from someone I know to be aware of the legislation.  Whilst telling me about a potential candidate the very first thing she told me about him was his age. 

However, there is an area of the law where I think things are a little foolish.  It's the banning of the use of certain words (such as dynamic or energetic) in recruitment adverts. As Dan McGuire recently pointed out what can be wrong with stating that you want someone who fits into your energetic office?

I don't want to work with someone, young or old, who's idle, inactive, lazy, lethargic, sluggish and tired.

Mind you - as I read here (from someone I ought to point out is quite obviously not a lawyer) so far no one has been successfully sued for asking this in a job advert.