Twelve months since age discrimination became unlawful, employers are ignoring the new legislation.

Research by The Employers Forum on Age (EFA) reveals almost nine out of ten people know it's illegal to discriminate on the grounds of age, compared with just 51 percent this time last year.

However, ageism is still present in the workplace. Three in five employees claim to have witnessed ageist behaviour since October 2006, the same number as before the new legislation came into force.

Sam Mercer of EFA said: “It is great that awareness of age discrimination issues among British adults has increased at an impressive pace since the law was passed twelve months ago. This proves that the laws served a purpose in terms of getting ageism on the radar. However, it is bad news for those employers who are still falling well short of the required standards of practice. On average 200 age discrimination claims are lodged every month with the Employment Tribunal Service, no employer can afford to bury their head in the sand and hope this issue will just go away.”

Other findings in the research showed nearly one third of workers are aware of an older person getting paid more than a younger person for doing the same job. The same number of people see workers managed differently depending on their age – an increase from 23 percent last year.

The EFA research also found that there is a long way to go to ensure ageism is properly understood, with less than half of those surveyed correctly identifying it is an issue which can affect anyone of any age and a third believing it only affects older people.

There is also good news. A total of 15 percent had a younger person in the workplace overlooked for promotion in favour of an older person, irrespective of experience, down from last year which was 23 percent.