WASHINGTON, Feb 2: US employers added 111,000 jobs in January, the government said on Friday in a report suggesting the world’s biggest economy kept positive momentum going into early 2007.

The Labour Department figure on non-farm payrolls, seen as one of the best indicators of economic activity, was weaker than the 150,000 new jobs expected by Wall Street analysts.

But the agency revised upward its estimates for job creation in December to 206,000 from 167,000 and to 196,000 in November from 154,000.

The unemployment rate, taken from a separate survey of households, rose slightly to 4.6 per cent from 4.5 per cent in December as more people joined the labour force.—AFP