Singing The Blues

EMI Group, the company that paid millions to end its contract with Mariah Carey, said Wednesday it is cutting 1,800 jobs in its recorded music unit, a reduction of 20 percent.

The company aims to achieve most of the cuts in its worldwide operations by the end of this month and the entire amount by the end of September. The money saved will be used to restructure EMI Recorded Music, which has struggled in a depressed music market and has issued two profit warnings in half a year.

"The restructuring plans revealed today will transform the performance of this part of our business," EMI chairman Eric Nicoli said.

EMI Recorded Music operates in 58 countries, and the company did not say how the job cuts would affect each nation.

The company said the job reduction started last April, when EMI Recorded Music had 9,388 employees. By September, total employment will be down to 7,600.

EMI shares were down 1.4 percent at 341 pence in early trading on the London Stock Exchange.

The company also said it was taking a one-time charge of $153 million for the reorganization, and it will take a further charge of $131 million to write off loss-making investments and other assets. That's in addition to an exceptional one-time charge of $54 million from January in connection with the termination of Carey's contract.

At the time, EMI said it paid $28 million to end Carey's contract and that Carey kept $21 million already paid under her contract.

EMI has 70 labels and 1,500 artists, including The Beatles, Paul McCartney, Lenny Kravitz, Janet Jackson, Garth Brooks and Pink Floyd.

The company has attributed disappointing profits to declining sales of recorded music, adverse exchange rates and some specific one-time costs.

Last week EMI announced it was closing its compact disc manufacturing plant in Swindon in western England and transferring production to its other European operation in the Netherlands. The Swindon plant employs 192 people.