Contrary to recent reports, Barnes & Noble will not axe its Nook e-reader brand or make significant cuts to its staff, the company has confirmed to Pocket-lint. 

"We have not eliminated our Nook hardware staff and we remain committed to offering our award-winning Nook products to our customers," a company spokesman told Pocket-lint. Barnes & Noble did say it has had some job eliminations across the organisation, but isn't abandoning the brand. It would not confirm how many jobs were cut. 

Word of job cuts at Barnes & Noble's Nook brand were first shared by Business Insider on Monday. It claimed the entire hardware engineering staff was laid off at Nook. Barnes & Noble strongly denies the claim, saying the Nook brand is going full steam ahead.  

"We’ve been very clear about our focus on rationalising the Nook business and positioning it for future success and value creation," Barnes & Noble said in a statement. "As we’ve aligned Nook's cost structure with business realities, staffing levels in certain areas of our organisation have changed, leading to some job eliminations. We’re not going to comment specifically on those eliminations."

The Nook brand at Barnes & Noble has experienced a few struggles of late. It dismissed VP of hardware Bill Saperstein in January, and then Jamie Iannone, the director of digital products, left for Walmart-owned Sam's Club in December 2013.

As for sales of Nook e-Readers, which compete against Amazon's Kindle line, revenue in the Nook division during Q4 2013 was $125 million. That's a 60.5 per cent drop compared to the same Christmas period a year ago. Even with the decline, Barnes & Noble believes it can turn its Nook business around. 

"We believe we have a strong management team in place at Nook, having recruited significant new talent," the company said in a statement. "The new Nook management team is focused on managing the business efficiently so that it becomes financially strong while at the same time aggressively moving to drive revenue growth."