Southwest Airlines is eliminating 1,750 jobs, or 15% of its corporate workforce, in the first major layoffs in the company’s 53-year history

Southwest Airlines is eliminating 1,750 jobs, or 15% of its corporate workforce, in the first major layoffs in the company’s 53-year history.

The Dallas-based airline said Monday that the job cuts would be focused almost entirely on “corporate overhead and leadership positions,” including senior leadership and directors. Eleven senior leadership positions, representing 15% of the company’s senior management committee, are being eliminated.

The job cuts, which are scheduled to be mostly completed by the end of June, are part of a plan by the airline to slash costs and transform the company into a “leaner, faster, and more agile organization,” Southwest CEO Bob Jordan said in a statement.

“This decision is unprecedented in our 53-year history, and change requires that we make difficult decisions,” Jordan said.

Southwest estimated that the job cuts will save the company about $210 million this year and roughly $300 million in 2026.

In November, the airline offered buyouts and extended leaves of absence to airport workers, including customer service agents, baggage handlers and cargo workers, in a bid to avoid “overstaffing in certain locations.”

The company has been under pressure from hedge fund Elliott Investment Management to increase profits and boost the stock price, which has fallen sharply since early 2021. Southwest shares are down 9.9% so far this year.

The two sides reached a truce in October to avoid a proxy fight, but Elliott won several seats on the Southwest board, which it can use to keep pressure on Jordan and other executives.

DAVOS, Switzerland — Billionaires’ wealth grew three times faster in 2024 than the year before, a top anti-poverty group reported on Monday as some of the world’s political and financial elite prepared for an annual gathering in Davos, Switzerland.

Oxfam International, in its latest assessment of global inequality timed to the opening of the World Economic Forum meeting, also predicts at least five trillionaires will crop up over the next decade. A year ago, the group forecast that only one trillionaire would appear during that time.

OxFam’s research adds weight to a warning by outgoing President Joe Biden last week of a “dangerous concentration of power in the hands of very few ultra-wealthy people.” The group’s sharp-edged report, titled “Takers Not Makers,” also says the number of people in poverty has barely budged since 1990.

The World Economic Forum expects to host some 3,000 attendees, including business executives, academics, government officials, and civic group leaders at its annual meeting in the Alpine village of Davos.

President-elect Donald Trump, who visited Davos twice during his first term and was set to take the oath of office on Monday, is expected to take part in the forum’s event by video on Thursday. He has long championed wealth accumulation — including his own — and counts multibillionaire Elon Musk as a top adviser.

“What you’re seeing at the moment is a billionaire president taking oaths today, backed by the richest man. So this is pretty much the jewel in the crown of the global oligarchies,” Amitabh Behar, executive director of Oxfam International, said in an interview, referring to Trump and Musk.

“It’s not about one specific individual. It’s the economic system that we have created where the billionaires are now pretty much being able to shape economic policies, social policies, which eventually gives them more and more profit,” he added.

Like Biden’s call for making billionaires “begin to pay their fair share” through the U.S. tax code, Oxfam — a global advocacy group — called on governments to tax the richest to reduce inequality and extreme wealth, and to “dismantle the new aristocracy.”

The group called for steps like the break-up of monopolies, capping CEO pay, and regulation of corporations to ensure they pay “living wages” to workers.

Many investors racked up strong gains in 2024, with strong performances for top tech companies and stock-market indexes like the S&P 500, as well as the price of gold and cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin.

Oxfam said billionaire wealth grew by $2 trillion last year, or roughly $5.7 billion a day, three-times faster than in 2023. The number of billionaires rose by 204 to 2,769, and the 10 richest men saw their wealth rise nearly $100 million a day on average, it said.

Citing World Bank data, the group pointed to lingering poverty, saying the number of people living on less than $6.85 per day has “barely changed” since 1990. Oxfam used Forbes’ Real-Time Billionaire List” as of end-November for data on the ultra-rich.

By contrast, at least four new billionaires were “minted” every week in 2024, and three-fifths of billionaire wealth comes from inheritance, monopoly power or “crony connections,” it said.

On average, Oxfam said, low- and middle-income countries are spending nearly half their national budgets on debt repayments. It also noted that life expectancy in Africa is just under 64 years of age, compared to over 79 years in Europe.

Despite the growing gap between the über rich and the poor, the annual Davos confab, which formally begins on Tuesday, will likely focus this year again on making money and doing deals, with strongman leaders on the rise in some Western countries and progressive causes like diversity and climate change waning in the business world.

The continued rise of artificial intelligence as a tool for business to reap greater efficiencies will also again be a central theme in Davos, despite worries in many sectors that AI could upend many white-collar jobs and displace workers in an array of industries.

Trump’s return for a second term will likely be on many lips in Davos, as will lingering conflicts, including wars in Ukraine and Sudan, along with hopes for a continuation of a cease-fire that began on Sunday between Hamas and Israel, pausing their devastating 15-month war in Gaza.

Forum organizers last week issued a survey conducted among 900 experts for “Global Risks Report,” which found that conflicts between countries was the top concern, followed by extreme weather, economic confrontation, misinformation and disinformation, and “societal polarization” — a nod to the gap between rich and poor.

As in past years, protesters calling for more economic equality, taxing the rich and pressing other demands took to the streets. Some blocked roads to Davos, snarling traffic in places and delaying trips for some attendees to the event, which runs through Friday.