DETROIT — With truck and sport utility vehicle sales tumbling and its U.S.-based competitors either closing factories or cutting production, Chrysler LLC may be the next automaker to announce further cuts.

While workers are anxious and industry analysts say additional measures are inevitable, Chrysler says that moves announced late last year are sufficient for now.

"We read the headlines just like everyone else," said Melvin Thompson, president of a United Auto Workers local at a pickup truck factory in Warren. "We're just in a holding pattern. The best thing we can do is just build a high-quality truck."

Chrysler's sales were down 25 percent in May, a month in which the whole market dropped 11 percent compared with May of last year.

Through the first five months of 2008, Chrysler's sales were off 19 percent, with huge drops in larger vehicles that make up most of its lineup.

For instance, the sales of the Dodge Durango SUV are down 44 percent through May when compared with the same period last year, while sales of Chrysler 300 large sedans are off nearly 31 percent.

All of this means further cuts are inevitable, said David Cole, chairman of the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor.

"You can't just have fields full of cars and trucks," said Cole, referring to 2007, when Chrysler manufactured too many slow-selling vehicles, storing them in empty lots near factories. Later the company angered dealers by forcing them into taking the unwanted cars and trucks.

In November, Chrysler announced it would cut 8,500 to 10,000 hourly jobs and 2,100 salaried jobs through the end of 2008, or about 15 percent of its workforce. In the past year, the company has cut shifts at seven vehicle assembly factories in Detroit, Sterling Heights and Warren, Mich.; Belvidere, Ill.; Toledo, Ohio; Brampton, Ontario; and St. Louis.

Company spokesman Ed Saenz said some of those cuts didn't take place until March and helped prepare the company for the latest downturn in the U.S. market.