The latest annual survey by Graduate Careers Australia shows 72.9 per cent of bachelor degree graduates were in full-time employment, compared with 66.5 per cent of capital city residents.

When it came to those who were not working despite seeking full-time employment, the figure was 12.1 per cent for capital city resident and 9.9 per cent for regional residents. The report showed 17.2 per cent of regional graduates were working part-time or casual hours while seeking full-time employment, compared with 21.4 per cent of recent graduates in capital cities.

According to the survey, 76.6 per cent of graduates with an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Island background were in full-time employment, 10 per cent were not working but seeking full-time employment and 13.5 per cent were seeking full-time employment while working part-time or casual hours.

The survey also showed that across the board full-time employment rates and the earnings advantage of completing a degree both hit record lows in 2014 for recent graduates.

Thirty-two per cent of university graduates who wanted a full-time job had not found one four months after completing a degree in 2014 - up from 29 per cent last year and topping the previous record of 29 per cent in 1992.

"These figures are really concerning," Grattan Institute higher education program director Andrew Norton said.

"They are worse than the 1990s recession but without the recession."

Mr Norton said the decline was most likely due to the growing number of students enrolling at university and a reluctance among employers to take on new workers since the global financial crisis.

Undergraduate university enrolments have soared by 23 per cent, or 110,000 students, since 2009 following the uncapping of student places.

In 2008, before the global economic downturn, 85 per cent of university graduates had found a full-time job four months after finishing their degree, compared with just 68 per cent this year.

More than 100,000 recent graduates completed the Australian Graduate Survey (AGS).

"These figures indicate that the labour market prospects of new bachelor degree graduates, which fell in the 2009 AGS as a result of the global financial crisis and did not change notably between 2010 and 2012 before falling again in 2013, have again fallen," the report says.

Recent pharmacy, medicine and mining engineering graduates were most likely to have full-time jobs, whereas social sciences, chemistry and psychology graduates were among the most likely to be unemployed or underemployed.

Employment opportunities have deteriorated significantly for recent law graduates. A quarter of law graduates were seeking permanent employment in 2014 four months after finishing their degree, up from 9 per cent in 2008.

The latest figures also showed starting salaries for graduates had declined when compared to the wage of an average Australian male.

The median starting salary for a bachelor degree holder aged under 25 was $52,500 in 2014, or 74 per cent of male average weekly earnings. It was the lowest proportion relative to the average male wage since records began in 1977 and was significantly down from the recent peak of 83 per cent in 2009.

The median graduate starting salary rose by just $50, or 0.1 per cent, from 2013 while the wage of an average male rose by $411 or 0.6 per cent.

New male graduates earned a median salary of $55,000 in 2014 while new female graduates started work on a median salary of $52,000. The difference was largely explained by the fact men were more likely to choose degrees that led to high starting salaries - such as engineering - than women, according to the GCA report.