It's curious how little attention unemployment has been getting compared with other federal government challenges like tax policy, debt and deficit.

The number of people looking for a job has now been over three quarters of a million for the past nine months – it's 18 years since Australia had that many people out of work. Last month's count of the unemployed – 768,600 in trend terms – was 60 per cent more than before the global financial crisis.

With the federal budget just two weeks away, you would expect Joe Hockey would be talking about the jobless. Credit:Mark Graham/Bloomberg

With numbers like that and the federal budget just two weeks away, you'd expect Joe Hockey would be talking a lot about the jobless. But in five lengthy media doorstops, interviews and Q&A sessions by the Treasurer last week he was not asked one question about unemployment. The transcripts for those interviews run to more than 7000 words but the word "unemployment" was only uttered once.

While the rate of unemployment has edged down to 6.1 per cent after reaching a 12-year high of 6.4 per cent a few months ago, there are troubling trends in the job numbers. The rate of long-term unemployment – when people have been out of work for a year or more – has been increasing at a faster pace than the total unemployment rate. Data released by the Department of Social Services last week showed the number of long-term job seekers receiving the Newstart allowance surged by 11.2 per cent to 275,725 in the year to March and has touched decade highs over the past few months.