Cuts crimp L.A.'s music business further.

When April Milek got laid off from Rhino Records last month, she was left with a generous severance package and time to reconsider her career path.

"I haven't looked at other labels yet," said the four-year Rhino employee. "I'm looking in a new direction. I still feel there are a lot of opportunities in the music industry, but record labels need to restructure themselves. They haven't quite figured out how to make money out of the new technology."

No group tracks record industry employment in Los Angeles, but as the big labels consolidate, hundreds of people throughout the region have been laid off and forced to wonder if there is a future in the business.

Already lagging music industry centers in New York, London and Nashville, Tenn., L.A.'s position has been aggravated by the latest round of cuts, which have further hurt the area's employment base.

Local music industry jobs peaked at 11,446 in 2000, according to the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp. The next year, they fell by nearly 10 percent. More recent figures are not available, but it's widely believed that the decline has only gathered steam.

"It's probably gone down since then because of bad times in the recording industry," said Jack Kyser, chief economist at the EDC. "(2000) was the last gasp."

Last month, EMI Group PLC cut 1,500 jobs worldwide as part of a decision to outsource manufacturing operations, and Warner Music Group combined the business divisions of its Elektra and Atlantic labels, laying off hundreds in the process.

EMI's cuts followed an earlier round in 2002, when it initiated 1,900 layoffs worldwide. Also in 2002, Virgin Records moved from Beverly Hills to New York, causing further job losses.

The moves come as the industry grapples with three straight years of declining sales, increasing CD burning on personal computers and online file sharing.

"Over the last two years, we've undertaken a number of initiatives that were designed to be proactive in the recorded music business," said Jeanne Meyer, a publicist with EMI Music in New York. "EMI elected to bring in new management to run its recorded music business. And the external factor was piracy. It's had a huge impact on any part of the recorded music business."

The experience for those forced out of the big labels has been sobering.

"I feel like I have more competition with what just happened a week or two ago with Atlantic and Elektra," said Milek. "So now there's more people out there looking for jobs."

For Catherine Corsaro, laid off from Hollywood-based Epitaph Records, the result was weeks of searching before she found her job as director of sales and marketing at Van Nuys-based Hopeless Records.

"I definitely looked outside the business," said Corsaro. "I went to a job fair for sales people. I submitted resumes to pharmaceutical companies, financial advisory companies. I was disappointed. Experience in the music industry is not very respected. They seem to think that working in this business is about fun and games."

Mary Patton, another former Rhino person, soured on the recording side of the business, although she's still immersed in music.

"It just became all about bottom line and big dollars. There was very little money left for passion projects," she said. "I wanted to be in a place where music mattered and where the independent spirit still thrived."

Patton left Rhino in 2001 after it took the first steps toward becoming a unit of Warner Music Group. She landed at record seller Amoeba Music Inc.'s Hollywood store.

"Some people have stayed and taken different jobs within the industry, others have moved into videogames, others have moved into film and television production," said Patton.

"I know a number of people who have gone into real estate because they just couldn't find a job in the industry. And it's kinda sad. It's brain-drain. There's a lot of creativity in this industry that's going to go away," she said.

Tess Taylor, president of the National Association of Recording Industry Professionals, a networking group, said jobs remain available despite the layoffs.

"We're looking for label managers, we're looking for product managers, we're looking for copyright managers," he said. "If you look at the job listings, there are tons of them. And there are tons of executive ones as well."