Following studies that Common Music Group (UMG) would transfer ahead with layoffs, the most important label has confirmed a forthcoming personnel discount.
We reported on the deliberate cuts – protection of which was adopted by a stock-price enchancment for UMG – over the weekend. In response to an preliminary article from Bloomberg, which cited “individuals with data of the matter,” the main music firm intends to half methods with “lots of” of group members.
Moreover, the identical supply, pointing to feedback made by in-the-know people “who weren’t approved to talk publicly,” relayed that UMG’s recorded music division could be hit hardest by the first-quarter layoffs.
Whereas it stays unclear exactly what number of staff (who numbered about 10,000 at 2022’s conclusion) can be affected, the profit-minded Common Music has in actual fact acknowledged the upcoming cutbacks.
Per a abstract from Reuters, a UMG spokesperson famous that the skilled dwelling of Drake and Taylor Swift “will lay off some staff in 2024.”
Digital Music Information reached out to Common Music for a direct affirmation of the layoffs – and doubtlessly particulars as to their precise extent – however didn’t obtain a response in time for publishing.
In any occasion, it was solely earlier in January that UMG head Lucian Grainge in an roughly 2,500-word memo to employees touted his firm’s 2023 efficiency excessive factors – eliciting criticism within the course of.
In direction of the top of the optimistic doc – which was, in fact, made accessible in its entirety through a number of shops – the well-compensated exec briefly talked about plans to “additional evolve our organizational construction.”
“In 2024, as we proceed our industry-leading investments in A&R and artist growth,” reads the related sentence as revealed by Billboard, “we’ll additional evolve our organizational construction to create efficiencies in different areas of the enterprise, so we are able to stay nimble and attentive to alternatives as they come up, whereas additionally profiting from the advantages of our scale.”
Given the layoffs affirmation’s timing, it seems that this organizational shuffle refers at the least partly to the team-size discount. “I promise 2024 can be a particularly thrilling and transformative yr for our firm,” Grainge pledged in closing out the memo.
Evidently, for these whose jobs are hanging within the steadiness, 2024 has, if something, confirmed “thrilling” for all of the fallacious causes so far. With the soon-to-be-made layoffs set in stone, it appears that evidently UMG staff are nonetheless ready in suspense for specifics.
On the time of this writing, no impacted individual regarded to have penned a social media or LinkedIn publish on the topic, nor had any report indicated that the layoffs had been made official. Equally, UMG hadn’t defined the cuts through a standalone announcement message.