Yielding to pressures of a slowed economy, several companies that have made fall job offers to this spring's college graduates are now asking those grads to wait as along as a year to begin work.

The length of time for many summer internship programs is also being cut from a generous 10-12 weeks to a tighter schedule of seven weeks.

PricewaterhouseCoopers is one of the firms feeling the crunch of having offered jobs when the economy and the workload looked brighter. Not wanting to rescind job offers, the firm has instituted a seniority plan for offers that were accepted. The later a prospective employee accepts an offer, the later the starting date for that employee will be pushed.

With the job market tightening and offers less plentiful than in previous years, many students are cautiously accepting the wait and planning on using the time to look for other opportunities.