Barnes & Noble cutting jobs; shares rise
Barnes & Noble shares rise as bookseller cuts jobs
NEW YORK (AP) -- Shares of Barnes & Noble rose on Monday as the bookseller said it was cutting jobs.
Barnes & Noble declined to specify how many jobs were cut. But the company said that a report on a website, Business Insider, that suggested the company was laying off all of its Nook hardware engineers was incorrect.
"We have not eliminated our Nook hardware staff and we remain committed to offering our award-winning Nook products to our customers," said spokeswoman Mary Ellen Keating. "We've been very clear about our focus on rationalizing the Nook business and positioning it for future success and value creation. As we've aligned Nook's cost structure with business realities, staffing levels in certain areas of our organization have changed, leading to some job eliminations."
Barnes & Noble has had a tough time as more consumers buy books online or in a digital format. The New York company's sales fell 6.6 percent at its bookstores and online during the critical holiday shopping season. It has invested heavily in its Nook e-book business but sales in that unit are dropping.
Still, in January Barnes & Noble elevated the head of its Nook business, Michael Huseby, to CEO.
Shares rose $1.27, or 8.6 percent, to $16.03 in late afternoon trading. The stock had been down about 1 percent in 2014.
