Employers must be more careful to ensure job ads are not ageist, according to the Employers Forum on Age.

The EFA has launched a national job ad amnesty and is encouraging people to send in examples of ageist recruitment ads and challenge recruiters to change their ways.

The Government is to legislate against age discrimination in employment by December 2006. The new legislation will carry the same weight as laws on gender, race and disability.

The EFA said forward-thinking companies had realised there was no place for age discrimination but many employers "still didn't get it".

Four years on from the launch of the Government's voluntary code, it was still too easy to find adverts which were explicitly and implicitly ageist.

Phrases such as "traditional secretarial support required, age 30s,", "salary relevant to age and experience" and "young, funky and ambitious? So is this agency and we are looking for ... " were examples of implicit ageism.

The amnesty aims to make more employers aware specifying ages or using age-related language in recruitment advertising can constitute discrimination.

The EFA will use the information gathered from the amnesty to gauge the extent of the problem in the UK and advise employers on good practice in the future.

EFA director Sam Mercer said: "Employers need to focus on ability, not age. Too many ads are not thought through and employers may not realise they are putting off ideal candidates.

"Simply removing an age range from an advert will not protect employers from future laws. Ageist language may also be considered unlawful and going by the adverts we see today many recruiters are going to have a serious problem in three years' time."

Craig Anderson, commercial manager at the Brighton office of Rewards Training Recruitment Consultancy, said: "I've talked to lots of older people who've said they just wouldn't respond to an advert that said it was looking for people who were 'dynamic', 'young' or 'energetic'.

"Ads aren't supposed to contain words that people might read as ageist but they still do."

The EFA's phrases to watch for young candidates were "lively", "ambitious", "bright", "upbeat" and "funky" and for older candidates "mature", "dependable", "responsible", "reliable" and "experience-driven".

Send ageist ads to Employers Forum on Age, Second Floor, the Tower Building, 11 York Road, London, SE1 7NX.

Thursday June 19, 2003