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In the past, early retirement was often a ready — and sometimes welcome — prospect to major layoffs in the auto sector. But the wave of layoffs that followed G.M.’s bankruptcy a decade ago means a majority of workers at the company today are nowhere near retirement age, according to Unifor, the workers’ union.

Retraining has already been raised. General Motors said on Thursday that it will set up a program with schools in Oshawa to turn assembly line workers into mechanics for car dealerships. But while there is certainly a shortage of qualified mechanics, it seems unlikely that dealerships will need more than 2,500 of them.

“I think we have to view with suspicion plans to retrain employees, because we’ve heard that story before,” Scott Aquanno, a political scientist at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology, who has studied previous G.M. layoffs, told me. “The opportunities for high-paying jobs are slim.”

And while Oshawa, like many Canadian cities, is trying to turn itself into a hub for technology industries, Mr. Aquanno said even if that effort is successful, it’s unlikely to help many G.M. workers.