Universal Music Lays Off 60

Expected job cuts begin at world’s largest record company

The Universal Music Group laid off 60 employees on Friday, part of an overall restructuring at both ends of the world's largest record company.

The affected jobs were characterized by a Universal spokesperson as low-level and administrative positions.

Universal also announced on Friday that it had hired Larry Jackson, a former A&R executive at Sony Music, for its Interscope Geffen A&M group.

The job cuts come less than a month after Lucian Grainge was propelled to the head of Universal Music Group with a mandate to cut “a lot of fat … without hurting muscle and bones.”

As TheWrap previously reported, staffers at the Universal — where Lady Gaga, Kanye West and Justin Bieber record — had been bracing for Grainge’s projected hit list of cost-cuts aimed at saving anywhere between $50 million and $400 million. The cuts were to include dozens, if not hundreds, of jettisoned music workers, according to three senior insiders who spoke to TheWrap.

One highly placed Universal told TheWrap earlier this month that UMG intended to make cuts "discreetly and surgically, with a series of back-office meshing, a dozen employees quietly lopped here, 15 or so there."

And more changes could be on the horizon in the executive suite.

According to the New York Times, Antonio Reid, chairman of Univeral's Island Def Jam Music Group "has declined an offer to run a new boutique label for the company."

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