Introduction

This guide provides a brief overview of underemployment, an introduction to the key concepts and terminology, and lists relevant data sources. This is one in a series of quick guides, designed to provide a basic understanding of Australian labour market data.

In the labour force framework, the labour force is the sum of the employed and the unemployed. People who are neither working, nor actively looking for work, are therefore described as ‘not in the labour force’. Depending on the measure used, underemployed people are either employed or not in the labour force. The focus of this paper is on people who are currently employed and would prefer to work more hours.