Southwest aims hiring blitz at Denver airport ramp

Southwest is deploying new hiring tactics, including on-the-spot interviews and instant job offers for ramp workers at Denver International Airport, in an effort to entice entry-level workers in a highly competitive US labor market. Southwest’s latest recruiting strategy comes as it battles nationwide with companies across a variety of industries to find workers for the 5,000 jobs it wants to fill this year. The Dallas-based airline aims to add another 8,000 positions in 2022. Those plans are part of a three-year goal to boost its employment ranks by 25,000, if business grows as expected, Bob Jordan, the carrier’s next chief executive officer, said Friday. A group of 10 employees known as the Tiger Team is dedicated to alleviating the hiring problem in Denver, where the company is managing the shortage of ramp workers by paying bonuses to employees in other cities to temporarily relocate. The team is staging job fairs and offering a pay differential to offset the area’s higher cost of living. The on-the-spot interviews and instant job offers are a first for the carrier, the largest in Denver, with 32% of its passengers. Southwest needs to hire more than 200 ramp workers at the Denver airport now and hundreds more going forward. “We’re utilizing every arrow in the quiver at this point,” Jordan said. “It’s an all-out war for talent, and when something is an all-out priority and all-out war, you attack it in a different way.” In 33 years at Southwest, “we’ve never had a time where the airline was constrained by people,” said Jordan, an executive vice president who will become CEO on Feb. 1. “It’s always been, can you get enough aircraft, facilities, gates. It’s never been, can we get enough people.”<br/>