Yes but the gradual rise of the average school leaving age has removed an important cohort from the market for low paid, low qualifications labour. Seasonal labour has been less effected because long summer holidays for 2nd. and 3rd. level students has provided a supply for such labour, but seasonal labour that falls out side of of school holidays - e.g. September/October harvests - has been more effected.

Also, it is one thing for students to slum it for a couple of months in the summer doing manual work and living in dingy accommodation - we've (nearly) all done it  - and quite another thing to aspire to such work as a career. In my experience (in the 1970's) such work was nearly always done by foreign (including a lot of Irish) students in the UK and wasn't the done thing for British students who seemed to have grants or other reasons for not having to tolerate a subsistence living.

It would require a huge social transformation in the UK for such work to become acceptable for middle class UK students again, especially if foreign students are also discouraged from attending UK colleges by higher (relative) fees and /or onerous visa requirements. At the moment even subsistence UK wages are attractive if you come from a very low wage economy like Romania, but if the value of Sterling falls much further and the economy in Romania improves, that attractiveness could diminish very rapidly.

Index of Frank's Diaries