April 28 (Reuters) - Children's clothing retailer Carter's Inc (CRI.N) posted an adjusted quarterly profit that handily beat market estimates, helped by strong performance of its brands, and cut its corporate workforce by 10 percent as part of a restructuring effort.

Carter's Kids' Wear (www.carters.com)

Carter's, however, said its second-quarter earnings will fall by 7 cents to 10 cents a share, excluding restructuring charges, from the year-ago period. The company earned 10 cents a share, excluding items, in the prior-year quarter.

It expects second-quarter sales to be flat to down low single digits.

Shares of the company fell $1.20 to $22.00 after the bell. They closed at $23.20 Tuesday on the New York Stock Exchange.

For the first quarter ended April 4, the Atlanta-based retailer, which operates Carter's and OshKosh retail stores, posted a nearly 42 percent rise in profit to $16.4 million, or 28 cents a share. Excluding items, it earned 38 cents a share.

Consolidated net sales came in at $356.8 million.

Analysts on average were expecting a profit of 16 cents a share on revenue of $334.9 million, according to Reuters Estimates.

In February, the company said it was looking to reduce costs by freezing wages and reducing head count, suspending 401(k) contributions and cutting most of its discretionary spend.

Carter's also said it closed its Oshkosh, Wisconsin facility and one of its three distributions centers.

It expects to take additional charges of $6 million in 2009 related to its restructuring efforts. Carter's said it has already recorded $8.7 million in pretax charges. For related alerts, double-click (Reporting by Mihir Dalal in Bangalore; Editing by Deepak Kannan, Himani Sarkar)