A tougher jobs market will make this one of the worst years to graduate for two decades, suggests a survey of leading employers.

The survey of 100 firms by High Fliers Research found that recruitment targets had been cut by 17% for this year.

The financial sector in particular had been hit by the economic downturn, with 47% fewer graduate entry jobs.

"Swinging cuts" in recruitment after years of a strong jobs market, makes this year a bad time to graduate.

Students graduating this year will face the toughest employment market in two decades, new figures reveal.

Due to the economic downturn, leading graduate employers in the UK have been forced to reduce their recruitment targets by 17%. The initial and more optimistic figures were calculated in September last year, at a time when firms were already seeing they would not hit the predicted 11.8% growth for 2008. Martin Birchall, managing director of High Fliers Research, who compiled the report, warned that there would be “swingeing cuts” across the sector.

Former students who took out loans before that year are being forced to pay more than double the existing Bank Rate of 1.5 per cent.

The rise will add to growing pressures on young professionals who are already struggling to find decent jobs because of the global recession.

Even students going to university after 1998 - when key changes to the student loans scheme were made - are being forced to pay more than the Bank of England's record low interest rate announced earlier this month.

Thousands of students are working in paid jobs as they struggle to survive even with maximum loans and grants, according to research published today.

Almost half of those who work rely on employment to fund basic living expenses. Many say that it has a negative impact on their studies.

Graduate vacancies at the country’s leading employers have been cut by a sixth this year, but lucrative opportunities still await university leavers prepared to stack supermarket shelves.

The discount retailer Aldi is named today as the best-paying graduate recruiter, offering a starting salary of £40,000, rising to £60,000 after three years, and an Audi 4 company car.

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Bea Carter, 21, is one of thousands of new graduates who are unemployed as 18-to 24-year-olds bear the brunt of the economic downturn.

This year's graduates face the toughest battle in a generation for jobs, with tens of thousands facing unemployment, according to evidence documenting the impact of the economic downturn.

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Students at one of Britain's biggest universities have become the first in the country to ban bottled still water from all their bars, cafes and shops, sacrificing annual profits of £32,000.

A referendum at Leeds University has voted overwhelmingly to phase out the product by the end of next year, to allow campus stores to absorb the loss of their biggest-selling line.

Thousands more students than expected will be affected by the cut to student grants, according to new figures.

An extra 90,000 students will lose out because of a government miscalculation, the Students Loans Company estimates.

The Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS) admitted in October that it had underestimated the number of students eligible for a full student maintenance grant and lowered the threshold for receipt of funding for a partial grant by £10,000 - having raised it in July.