With path cleared to close Yahoo deal, Verizon prepares the pink slip printer

Deal to close June 13, as Yahoo stockholders approve endgame.

Yahoo stockholders today approved the terms of the acquisition of the company's Internet business by Verizon for $4.48 billion. What once was Yahoo's primary business will be merged with Verizon's AOL unit to create a business to be called "Oath."

With that deal on final approach, many Yahoo and AOL employees may be uttering oaths of their own as Verizon prepares to purge about 2,100 workers from the combined organization, according to a Wall Street Journal report. That amounts to about 15 percent of the combined workforce of the two businesses. The layoffs are expected to be spread evenly across AOL and Yahoo staff, and few of the cuts are expected to affect engineers and product teams.

The layoffs mark the latest series of cuts for both Yahoo and AOL, which have both been shedding employees in anticipation of the deal. AOL cut about 500 employees late last year, and Yahoo is down from about 14,000 employees in 2010 to roughly 8,100 as of the end of last year.

The layoffs will begin after the acquisition of Yahoo, which is expected to close on June 13. While the company will change names, the AOL and Yahoo brands will still appear on products. The closing of the deal is good news to some people, including Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer. She will receive a severance package worth about $23 million, in addition to stock compensation worth about $187 million.