6265.0 - Underemployed Workers, Australia, Sep 2004  
ARCHIVED ISSUE Released at 11:30 AM (CANBERRA TIME) 15/03/2005   
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MEDIA RELEASE

March 15, 2005
Embargoed 11:30am (AEST)
29/2005

Just over one in five part-time workers want to work more hours

Just over one in five part-time workers want to work more hours, according to new figures released today by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. This was a similar proportion to the previous year.

In September 2004, there were 612,900 part-time workers who wanted to work more hours. This represented 22% of the 2,740,600 part-time workers, and just over 6% of the 9,724,000 people employed in Australia.

Of the 612,900 part-time workers who wanted to work more hours:
  • Almost half had looked for work with more hours in the previous four weeks.
  • 87% were looking for, or available to start work with more hours in the reference week or within four weeks.
  • 59% wanted to work full time.

A higher proportion of male part-time workers (29%) wanted to work more hours than female part-time workers (20%). Just under three-quarters (71%) of male part-time workers wanting more hours wanted to work full-time, compared to 51% of females.
On average, part-time workers looking for, or available to start work with more hours, wanted an additional 14.9 hours per week. Males wanted to work more additional hours (16.2 hours) than females (14.1 hours).

For part-time workers who looked for work with more hours, the most commonly reported main difficulty in finding work with more hours was 'no vacancies in line of work' (18%). A further 10% reported 'lacked necessary skills or education' as their main difficulty, and 10% reported 'no vacancies at all'.

Further information is in Underemployed Workers, 2004 (cat. no. 6265.0).