Tony Abbott has criticised Australia's welfare system saying major cities are fringed by "white welfare villages" while people in regional areas would rather be unemployed than work in jobs such as fruit picking and cleaning.

As the Turnbull government prepares to find further budget savings from the welfare system, the former prime minister said on Wednesday that people needed to take whatever jobs were on offer.

"We have to wake up to ourselves," Mr Abbott told Sydney radio station 2GB.

"This idea that you can be unemployed on benefits in a town where you can't get fruit pickers...it's just wrong."