A fifth of the Australian workforce, or 2.69m people, is unemployed or underemployed, new research has found.

Market research firm Roy Morgan announced yesterday that while the unemployment rate rose to 9.7% in December, it found underemployment was at a record high.

It found 11% of the workforce, 1.43m people, were working part time and looking for more hours or a full-time job. This was a 1.3% increase year-on-year and 0.6% month-on-month.