Nearly a quarter of the country's workforce believes that employers don't want to hire or promote people over the age of 40, according to research from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. The finding will come as no surprise to readers of The Grocer ­ because we regularly get complaints from people who believe they have failed to get a job because they were deemed to old. In its survey, the institute questioned a nationally representative sample of more than 1,000 adults ­ more than half of them in employment ­ and found that perceptions of ageism reached down the years, as well as up. One in 10 respondents between 45 and 54 years old believed they had been rejected for a job in the past year because they were too old. And 7% of those between 16 and 24 had been told they were too young. One in eight reported being discouraged from applying for a job in the past year because the advertisement contained an age limit or range, or specified a "young" candidate. Melissa Compton-Edwards, the report's author, says: "More needs to be done to convince employers that using age to select people for employment, promotion or redundancy is extremely wasteful of talent." So are companies in the grocery industry guilty as charged? Asda was quick to issue a press release boasting about the positive measures it takes to employ the over-50s. But the supermarket chain admits most of the jobs it is looking to fill are on the shop floor: "Our older colleagues tend to be porters and greeters, although there are a number of people in their 50s at head office." And Unilever, one of the country's top grocery suppliers, admits its recruitment policy is skewed in favour of younger people. A spokesman said: "We do recruit people in their 30s, but not so much among the over-40s. But we don't set age limits on ads, and try to disregard age at interview." {{PEOPLE MOVES }}