Recruitment consultants can play a vital role in educating employers about the value of age diversity in the workplace, a government minister has claimed.

Minister for pensions Malcolm Wicks is encouraging enlightened agencies to enter awards that will demonstrate the industry’s role in promoting age diversity.

Recruiter is teaming up with the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to promote the Recruitment Excellence Awards, which are part of its Age Positive campaign.

Age Positive aims to show that there are business benefits to having an age diverse workforce.

Wicks told Recruiter: “Good recruitment agencies will always be trying to fill vacancies with skilled people. This could include talking to HR directors and persuading them to give someone a chance, even though they are over 50. They can be real champions of age diversity.”

Britain was faced with falling birth rates and there simply weren’t enough young people emerging to fill job vacancies, Wicks said, which made it all the more important for firms to consider older candidates.

He added: “The good companies in the future will be the ones that don’t let prejudice creep in when they are battling to recruit good men and women.”

Potential benefits of age diversity include increased profits, morale, productivity and retention, as well as a better company image and a wider range of skills, the government claims.

The government will introduce European anti-age discrimination legislation by the end of 2006, which will outlaw ageism at work.

•Kent-based recruitment agency Kings Hill Recruitment has won the DWP’s separate 2004 Age Positive Award for its own internal age diversity policies.