General Motors and Chrysler, which are borrowing $17.4 billion from the federal government and have until mid-February to show that they can be viable, are offering more buyouts and early retirement packages to factory workers this week as they rush to cut labour costs.

Nearly all of the two companies' hourly workers, about 62,000 at GM. and 28,600 at Chrysler, will be eligible for the offers, which are less generous than the packages used to cut tens of thousands of jobs since 2005.

GM will offer its American hourly workers $20,000 in cash and a $25,000 voucher to buy a vehicle as an incentive to retire or leave the company, an official with the United Auto Workers union briefed on the plan said. Chrysler's programme offers retirement-eligible workers $50,000 in cash and a voucher of $25,000 for a new Chrysler vehicle if they leave.

Workers who opt to leave Chrysler with no retiree health care benefits would get $75,000 and a $25,000 car voucher.

GM detailed its offers in an e-mail message to local union officials Monday. Chrysler made its offers Friday to all hourly workers represented by the United Auto Workers except those at the company's Kenosha, Wisconsin, engine plant. Workers at both companies have until 25 February to accept the offers.

According to the memo from UAW vice president General Holiefield to local presidents and other officials, the union negotiated for another round of offers at Chrysler because of conditions the federal government imposed on the company in exchange for granting the loans.

The conditions require the Chrysler and GM to make changes to their UAW contracts, including elimination of the jobs bank, in which workers get most of their pay even when they are laid off. Chrysler, GM and the union said last month that the jobs banks had been eliminated.

Under the loan terms issued last year by the Bush administration, the companies must show an ability to repay the government loans and to achieve "positive net present value," which means that the present value of a company's expected net cash flows exceeds the initial investment in the company.

Both companies were in danger of running out of cash late last year, making the loans necessary for their survival. The loan terms also set "restructuring targets" that include swapping a portion of the companies' bond debt for equity, as well as reducing labor costs so they are equal to the costs of Nissan Motor Co., Toyota Motor Corp. and Honda Motor Co. at their US factories.

GM said last May that about 19,000 US factory workers - just over a quarter of its blue-collar work force at the time - had taken buyouts to leave the payroll. In September, Chrysler had offered some 14,000 factory workers in Michigan lump-sum payments of up to $100,000 plus tuition assistance and some support for moving.

Ford Motor Co., which says it has enough borrowed cash to make it through 2009 and doesn't expect to use government loans, expects to get the same concessions from the UAW that GM and Chrysler get as part of their government loan agreements.

But Ford spokeswoman Marcey Evans said the company has "no plans at this time to offer buyouts to hourly workers." The Dearborn-based automaker offered 10 early retirement and buyout packages to all hourly workers during the first quarter of 2008 and offered packages at selected factories in the third quarter. About 7,100 employees left the company as a result, she said.