Mary Barra’s tough turnaround plan at General Motors has already started paying off. GM’s fourth-quarter earnings, released Wednesday, beat Wall Street expectations on tighter cost controls and higher truck sales.

“Results were driven by strong pricing, surging crossover sales, successful execution of the company’s full-size truck launch, growth of GM Financial earnings and disciplined cost control,” the company said in a statement.

Here’s how the company did compared with what Wall Street expected:

• Adjusted earnings: $1.43 per share vs. $1.22 per share estimated
• Revenue: $38.4 billion vs. $36.48 billion expected

Shares of the automaker were up more than 4 percent before the market opened on Wednesday.

GM is in the midst of a plan to cut 14,000 jobs from its workforce. The automaker has said the cuts will save about $6 billion by 2020, but union leaders and politicians from states affected by the cuts have cried foul.

The cuts come as part of a plan to cut back on the production of slower-selling sedans and traditional passenger cars, as GM doubles down on the more profitable and faster-selling trucks, sport utility vehicles and crossovers. At the Chicago auto show later this week, GM plans to give the public their first look at a new heavy duty pickup truck it unveiled at its Flint, Michigan, plant Tuesday — another in a string of new heavy duty pickups from Detroit automakers looking to dominate the growing market.

Separately, GM said Tuesday it will add 1,000 workers to build new heavy-duty pickup trucks at its plant in Flint, Michigan, and will give priority to GM workers who were laid off elsewhere.

The automaker has said it is trying to find new jobs for 1,500 U.S. hourly workers at the affected plants. Flint could be a haven for many of these employees.

Sales of heavy-duty pickups in the U.S. have grown to more than 600,000 vehicles a year, up more than 20 percent since 2013, according to industry data. Prices for luxury models can easily top $70,000.

—Reuters contributed to this report.