General Motors hourly workers will receive bonuses of $12,000 after the company made a profit of $12 billion in North America.

The United Automobile Workers union negotiated a profit sharing deal in 2011.

The deal is worth up to $1,000 per $1 billion of profit the company makes in the continent.

However, net profit for the whole of GM dropped 2.7% in 2016 to $9.43 billion after foreign exchange losses.

Photo AP

A jump in sales in mid-size pick-up trucks and SUVs aided sales in the US. Chevrolet was GM’s fastest growing brand in the US in 2016, increasing its share of the US retail market by 0.5 percentage points.

A year earlier, payments of up to $11,000 were awarded to union workers after $11 billion of North American profits were posted. The award is based on working more than an average of 35 hours per week during the year.

In Europe, GM reported a narrower loss of $257 million, compared with $813 million in 2015, as sales rose.

GM sold a record 10 million vehicles in 2016, up 1.2% from 2015, with 3.04 million vehicles sold in the US.

In China, deliveries rose 7.1% to a record 3.87 million vehicles and in Europe, its Opel and Vauxhall marques posted a 4% sales increase.

GM said Q4 net profit fell partly because of $500 million in currency losses, mostly from the decline of the pound.

The company forecast profit per share in 2017 would be the same or slightly better than 2016.