US employers added fewer employees to their payrolls last month than expected even as the unemployment rate rose slightly, the Labor Department said today. The economy added 111,000 jobs in January, fewer than the 150,000 jobs economists had expected from the survey of employer payrolls. The unemployment rate, taken from a separate survey of households, rose slightly to 4.6 pct from 4.5 pct in December. In November and December, the number of jobs added was revised up by 81,000 to a cumulative two-month total of 402,000. Average hourly wages rose 0.2 pct in January, or 0.03 usd, to 17.09 usd. Average hourly earnings have risen 4.0 pct in the past year, slightly lower than the 12 months leading up to December. The average workweek fell slightly to 33.8 pct in January from 33.9 in the prior month. For all of 2006, non-farm payrolls rose a revised 2.0 mln, 405,000 more than the earlier estimate.