EARLY RETIREMENT OPTIONS

* Almost 40 percent of the nation's largest companies offered early retirement opportunities to employees in 1990 or 1991, according to a survey by the Wyatt Company, a consulting firm.

Fourteen of 50 major US firms surveyed offered early retirement in 1991, and seven of the 14 did so in 1990 as well. The total number of firms offering early retirement incentives over the two-year period was 19.