The number of people without work in Yorkshire rose by 23,000 during the three months to July, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has revealed.

The body stated that 272,000 people in the region were unemployed during this three-month period.

This represents a 9.2% increase, meaning that the region's jobless number accounts for 10% of the total population.

Thanks to the Olympics, the unemployment rate across the whole of the UK fell by 7,000 to 2.39 million which means the national rate currently stands at 8.1%.

It was also revealed by the ONS that the number of people claiming jobseekers allowance fell by 15,000 in August to 1.57 million, compared to a month earlier. This is the largest monthly decrease since June 2010.

The notion that the Olympics had something to do with the improvement is seemingly reinforced by the fact 5,500 of the 15,000 fewer jobseeker claimants were from London.

It also emerged that the number of people with jobs rose by 236,000 to 29.6 million in the three months to July - also the largest quarterly rise for two years. The ONS revealed that 91,000 of those newly hired people lived in London.

Copyright Press Association 2012