ADDITIONAL JOB CUTS HIT 2 ENTERTAINMENT GIANTS.

Byline: Dave McNary Daily News Staff Writer

Universal Music Group continued its massive restructuring Thursday as 200 of the 600 people on its sales staff were laid off, informed sources said.

The move by the world's largest music company represents the second phase of restructuring at UMG, which cut 500 jobs last week at its A&M, Geffen, Mercury and Motown labels. As with the previous layoffs, the affected employees were informed of their dismissals when they arrived at work and were told to clean out their offices by the end of the day.

In an unrelated development, sources said The Walt Disney Co. has laid off less than 100 employees in its feature animation department but expects to rehire most of them later this year when the workload is expected to increase. The company had no comment.

UMG's revamping, triggered by last month's $10.4 billion buyout of PolyGram, is expected to last through summer and could include up to another 600 layoffs in the United States plus at least 800 job cuts overseas. Seagram Co., UMG's parent, is attempting to generate $300 million in annual savings by eliminating duplicative functions in its music operations.

UMG did not officially confirm Thursday's layoffs. Instead, it announced the structure of the merged Music & Video Distribution operation with three regional divisions of four offices each.

The sales staff will be split in two with one group handling new ``mainstream'' titles and everyone else working on catalog, reissues and compilations. A new marketing group will be created to handle special promotions for customers.

UMG also announced it had started to combine its New York-based Verve and GRP jazz labels into a single operation, with sources saying 15 to 20 layoffs occurred Thursday.