Official jobs data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) estimates that nearly 76,000 jobs were added to the economy last month, sending unemployment down to 3.6 per cent.

The strong figures came as a shock to economists, who were typically expecting 15,000 jobs to be added last month and the unemployment rate to remain steady at 3.7 per cent.

The proportion of Australians aged 15 and over either in work or looking for it — known as the participation rate — also increased to a record high of 66.9 per cent.

The participation rate rose 0.2 percentage points for women, to 62.7 per cent, and remained at 71.2 per cent for men.

"A greater share of women in Australia are employed than ever before, with their employment to population ratio and participation rate both at record highs in May," Bjorn Jarvis from the ABS said.

That lifted the proportion of Australians in jobs to an equal record high.

Combined with a rapid increase in the population, that saw the number of employed people in Australia surpass 14 million for the first time.

"Just before the start of the pandemic almost 13 million people were employed in Australia," Mr Jarvis noted.

Economist Callam Pickering, from jobs website Indeed, said there appears to be little risk of a sharp rise in unemployment in the near term.

"Australia's job vacancy rate is 2.8 per cent, which is still around twice as high as was considered normal before the pandemic," he noted.

"It wasn't all good news though, with the rate of underemployment increasing to 6.4 per cent, up from 6.1 per cent, which pushed the underutilisation rate to 10 per cent for the first time since April last year," Mr Pickering said.