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Universal US to cut fifty jobs today
By CMU Editorial | Published on Friday 15 January 2010
It’s job cuts Friday for the Universal Music Group today, so that’s fun. In the unfun sense of the word, obviously. Various sources say that about fifty US-based staffers at the world’s biggest music company will be laid off later today. About half of those to be cut work for one of the company’s distribution divisions, while redundancies on the label side are likely to occur in the Interscope unit, and at imprint labels Lost Highway and Verve.
It’s not clear if there will be similar cuts in the near future elsewhere in the Universal empire, ie outside the US. In reality, all the major labels have been quietly reducing headcount for some time (or loudly, in EMI’s case), partly as a result of declining profits, and partly because of the need for the majors to diversify into areas of the music business other than the release and distribution of sound recordings, something which arguably involves bringing in new talent from outside the traditional record industry.
Universal confirmed the job cuts to Billboard yesterday, explaining: “Universal Music Group is continuing to transform our organisation to better serve our artists and business partners. Given the current economic climate, we have to be as agile and efficient as possible. Unfortunately, these ongoing efforts have resulted in some redundancy. However, UMG will now be even better positioned to compete in the growing global, digital marketplace”.
