I work in the public sector and recently having been involved in recruitment the applications I see make no mention of A levels and although university attended is stated there are instructions to not bias against any university and only consider degree classification.
I don't know how widespread this practice is but there definitely seems to be a focus on widening participation and to some extent this means widening the range of degrees allowable for various professions (and by default reducing minimum A level requiremnts).
time will tell on the ultimate consequence of this strategy but for school children now is it worth it honest to tell them that a high number of high grade academic qualifications will lead to significant advantage in employment prospwcts?
the educational arena is now complicated with a range of vocational qualifications which public sector employers are now told to have equivalence with more academic subjects.