Australia's unemployment rate would deteriorate further if a future Coalition government went ahead with planned public service job cuts, Kevin Rudd has claimed during his first big economic hit-out since becoming prime minister for a second time.

Faced with a national jobless rate climbing to 5.7 per cent in June, its highest level since the depths of the global financial crisis, Mr Rudd used a speech to the National Press Club - originally offered as a debate with Opposition Leader Tony Abbott on debt and deficit - to propose a new co-operative productivity pact between government, unions and employers.

His ''national competitiveness agenda'' has also been designed to directly counter Mr Abbott's highly effective political critiques of Labor over cost-of-living pressures, the carbon tax, union militancy and broader economic management. Mr Rudd said his multi-pronged strategy involved unspecified action to address: