The bookseller Barnes & Noble laid off employees in its Nook device unit on Monday, the latest sign of the company’s difficulties in executing its digital strategy.

Fewer than 100 people have lost their jobs, a person briefed on the layoffs said.

Mary Ellen Keating, a spokeswoman for Barnes & Noble, declined to comment specifically on the job eliminations, but said that the company had “no plans to exit the device business.”

“We’ve been very clear about our focus on rationalizing the Nook business and positioning it for future success and value creation,” Ms. Keating said in a statement. “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.”

Ms. Keating added that the company had recently “recruited significant new talent.”

Only two years ago, William Lynch, then the chief executive of Barnes & Noble, was focused on building a technology outpost for the company in Palo Alto, Calif. His ambitions were to create a 300-worker division that included engineers and developers.