This is not a phrase that's commonly used... it's part of this writer's personal style, a unique phrase to make the idea more interesting. It's a metaphor.
"Executives are getting rid of the jobs"
turns into
"Executives are gobbling up all the jobs."
"Gobbling up" means "devouring" or "feasting on". So when the writer says the executives "gobble up" the jobs, they "eat them" to nourish themselves.
Which makes sense - because the executives took away the opportunities of their workers, in order to get more opportunity for themselves. Without worrying much about how it affected the workers. So, it is like the executives "ate everything off of the worker's plates".