General Motors will cut at least 25,000 American manufacturing jobs by the end of 2008 and close additional assembly and parts plants to reduce costs, Chief Executive Richard Wagoner announced yesterday.

The unspecified plant closings will generate estimated savings of $2.5 billion a year once complete, Mr. Wagoner said in a speech at GM’s annual shareholders’ meeting in Wilmington, Del. The company had about 150,000 domestic employees, including 111,000 hourly workers, at the end of last year.

Mr. Wagoner’s announcement shows “the process of restructuring is moving at a faster pace,” David Cole, chairman of the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Mich., said. “These are very significant cuts.” Other analysts said they wanted to see deeper cuts.

Mr. Wagoner, 52, met shareholders amid investors’ calls for a detailed plan to stem losses, restructure the business, and rebuild sales. GM’s first quarter loss of $1.1 billion was its biggest for any quarter in 13 years. The company has shed 1.5 points of American market share this year, while Toyota, the world’s no. 2 automaker, has gained 1.3 points.

General Motors’ shares rose 42 cents, or 1.4%, to $30.84 in afternoon trading on the New York Stock Exchange. The company’s shares had fallen 24% this year through yesterday.

Analysts including UBS Securities’ Robert Hinchliffe in New York said before the meeting that GM needs to cut as many four plants. The company has demand for 5 million of its cars and trucks, while its factories have the capacity to make 6 million.

Wagoner said today that GM’s domestic capacity will fall to 5 million by the end of this year. The new cuts will further reduce that number.

The two and a half hour meeting was attended by 194 shareholders, about double the attendance of recent years. James Dollinger, a Flint, Mich., Buick dealer who attends the meetings almost every year, suggested several times that Mr. Wagoner resign.

Several investors, included shareholder activist Evelyn Davis, who owns 202 GM shares, criticized Mr. Wagoner and the GM board for being neutral to billionaire investor Kirk Kerkorian’s bid to increase to 8.8% his share of the automaker’s stock. Mr. Kerkorian said May 9 the investment is passive “at present.”

Mr. Wagoner said Mr. Kerkorian’s Tracinda hasn’t asked for a seat on the GM board. The $868 million GM tender offer for up to 28 million shares expired yesterday.

“Kerkorian is an enemy of everyone in this room,” Mr. Davis said.

General Motors 6.875% note due 2011, sold by the company’s finance unit, rose 1.25 cents on the dollar to 91.75 cents as its yield fell to 8.60%.

“From a bondholder’s perspective, it looks like they’re taking things rather serious,” said Wil Stith, a portfolio manager at MTB Investment Advisors in Baltimore. “Job cuts are significant, cost savings are significant, bond prices are higher – it looks like it’s what the market wanted to hear.”

The automaker cut North American production 12% in the first quarter and plans a 10% reduction this quarter. Another 9% drop is slated in the third quarter after domestic sales in May fell for the fourth month in five this year.

GM’s planned cuts include attrition. The company normally loses about 5% of its workforce to attrition each year, so the cuts announced today aren’t that drastic, said UBS analyst Mr. Hinchliffe.

“I wanted to hear more significant cuts and more specifics about GMAC,” he said. “I didn’t want to hear they’re exploring GMAC.”

Mr. Wagoner has said the automaker is looking at “strategic” options for its General Motors Acceptance finance company, without being more specific. GM has earned more money from making car and truck loans than from selling cars and trucks since 2002

Merrill Lynch & Company estimated in a March 24 report that GMAC could raise as much as $14.2 billion if it sold its residential mortgage and insurance units.

GM’s plan to cut 25,000 jobs amounts to about one-third of the 74,000 cut during its last big restructuring, in the early 1990s. GM’s biggest challenge is its North American automotive unit, where fixed costs such as factories and labor amounted to 39% of revenue in the first quarter, Mr. Wagoner told employees in an April 19 broadcast.

The figure should be about 25% for GM to be competitive, he said. The gap is ominous, Mr. Wagoner said, because it’s growing.