It was certainly closer to the latter than the former, but I thought it'd be funny to laugh at him as most Sports Direct employees don't wear top hats.
He also goes on to talk about the "gig economy" which is obviously this huge grey zone - are Uber drivers employees?
In terms of students, working at a University at the back end of last year surprised me at how much the timetables are geared around enabling students to work as well as study. Our course tried to have the lectures consolidated into 3 full days so the students could work a couple of full days and also so those who still live at home and commute in wouldn't have long trips for a couple of hours in lectures. It was very different than when I was a student.
Overall though, if students were the main beneficiaries of zero hours contracts it'd largely become a moot point when they get free tuition anyway