The drop follows four years of sustained growth in the graduate recruitment market and contrasts with employer forecasts at the start of this year for growth of 2% in vacancies this year.
Employers are forecast to have added 160,000 jobs to their payrolls last month, picking up slightly from January's 157,000 count, according to a Reuters survey of economists.
Economists had forecast employers would add 240,000 jobs last month and the unemployment rate would fall to 5.6% from January's 5.7%.
Economists forecast that employers added 200,000 jobs in April, while the unemployment rate remained 5%.
Economists forecast that employers added 163,000 jobs in April, slightly better than March's figures but below the pace from December through February.
In a "legislative update" on its Web site, Conner Strong conjured a bleak forecast for employers that stick with the state program.
In its quarterly economic forecast, the employers' body said that the UK would rely heavily on exports to keep the economy moving during 2011.
"We forecast that employers would ultimately say 'we can't afford to pay premium because we've got the store open longer, we've got the lights on longer, we've got our overheads'.
Other employers offer the same forecast.
Analysts are forecasting that employers produced a healthy increase of 220,000 jobs and that the unemployment rate fell to 5.2percentt.
