The unemployment rate in Australia rose in May to 5.7 per cent. That was expected.

But for the first time the Bureau of Statistics measured the number of underemployed – people who want to work full-time but are making do with part-time work only.

Add together the jobless and the underemployed and nearly 13.5 per cent of the workforce can’t get enough work.

John Buchanan, head of the Workplace Research Centre at Sydney University, said men were feeling the brunt of it.

“Most of that change has come from males, where the under-utilisation rate has gone from 8.2 per cent to 12.5 per cent,” he said. “In the space of a year, that is phenomenal.”