BUYOUTS: General Motors Corp. and its main supplier, Delphi Corp., are offering early-retirement incentives or buyouts to more than 125,000 employees.

LABOR RELIEF: It’s unclear how many workers will take buyouts, but the program should provide some relief from high labor costs for GM, which lost $10.6 billion in 2005, and for Delphi, which is in bankruptcy protection.

LOOMING DEADLINE: Delphi still needs to solve the issue of the workers who remain. The supplier says that if it can’t reach an agreement with the unions to cut wages by March 30, it will ask a bankruptcy judge to void its contracts, which could bring on a strike that would cripple both Delphi and GM.

– By The Associated Press