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Samba Hands Over 100 Housing Units in Community Initiative

Samba Hands Over 100 Housing Units in Community Initiative
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Samba Hands Over 100 Housing Units in Community Initiative

Samba Hands Over 100 Housing Units in Community Initiative

Samba Financial Group has provided 100 housing units to needy families as part of the Housing Support Program that falls under its community initiatives.

The Program aims to provide 500 furnished housing units to the needy and 100 new and furnished housing villas ready for immediate housing.

The announcement was made on Wednesday during a ceremony held in Riyadh to hand over the keys to those benefiting from the program.

The ceremony was attended by Chairman of Samba Financial Group Issa al-Issa, Minister of Housing Dr. Majed Al-Hogail, Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority (SAMA) Governor Dr. Ahmed Al-Khulaifi, CEO of Samba Financial Group Rania Nashar and a number of officials.

Issa stated that Samba has taken the initiative to help 500 households, saying that around three batches have already been handed over to more than 1,600 beneficiaries.

Hogail said that the initiative reflects the spirit of fruitful cooperation and integration between the public and private sectors endorsed by the ministry and the Real Estate Development Fund (REDF) to provide citizens with houses.

The Saudi banking sector – supervised by SAMA – has been the strategic partner and a key arm for the ministry of housing, Hogail added.

Khulaifi depicted the initiative as evidence on the banking institutions' deep commitment to social responsibilities, and a reminder on the effective role of Saudi banks in providing incentives to development.

As for Nashar, she said that Samba’s initiative wouldn’t have succeeded without the joint efforts of all parties, stressing that it is an extension of a series of development programs implemented by the financial group.

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US Labor Market Slows Despite Job Adds in May

Commuters cross Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC, during the morning rush hour. (Roberto Schmidt/AFP/Getty Images)
Commuters cross Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC, during the morning rush hour. (Roberto Schmidt/AFP/Getty Images)
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US Labor Market Slows Despite Job Adds in May

Commuters cross Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC, during the morning rush hour. (Roberto Schmidt/AFP/Getty Images)
Commuters cross Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC, during the morning rush hour. (Roberto Schmidt/AFP/Getty Images)

The United States added 139,000 jobs in May, more than expected but pointing to a labor market that continues to slow.

The employment data released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics exceeded forecasts for about 120,000 payroll gains but marked a decline from the revised 147,000 jobs added in April. The unemployment rate held steady at 4.2%, remaining near historic lows.

Stocks surged at Friday's open, with all three major indexes gaining about 1%.

In return, US government borrowing costs climbed as investors anticipated the Federal Reserve would keep interest rates higher for longer, making it less attractive to hold US debt.

The BLS report showed job losses in the federal government continued to pile up, with that sector shedding 22,000 roles in May alone.

The federal workforce is down by 59,000 since January, largely due to sweeping cuts by the Trump administration and multibillionaire tech executive Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency project.

Even as the economy continued to add jobs at a relatively steady clip last month, the report showed other signs of a weakening labor market.

The ratio of employed workers to the total population fell to 59.7%, its lowest since the pandemic.

An alternative measure of unemployment that includes “discouraged” workers, or those who have stopped looking for work, returned to a post-pandemic high of 4.5%.

But President Donald Trump cheered the numbers, posting on his Truth Social platform Friday morning: “AMERICA IS HOT! SIX MONTHS AGO IT WAS COLD AS ICE! BORDER IS CLOSED, PRICES ARE DOWN. WAGES ARE UP!”

Trump had urged Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell to slash interest rates by a full percentage point.

“Too Late' at the Fed is a disaster!” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.

In reality, employers added 212,000 jobs in November, unemployment was at 4.1%, the 12-month average of hourly pay gains have softened from nearly 4.2% then to 3.9% in May, and both the labor force participation rate and the employment-to-population ratio were slightly higher.

Only consumer prices have meaningfully cooled, ticking down from an annual inflation rate of 2.7% in November to 2.3% in April, the latest month with available data.

Analysts at Capital Economics called the May jobs report “not as good as it looks.”

Still, they wrote in a note Friday, “it shows that tariffs are having little negative impact” and added that the Federal Reserve is likely to continue holding interest rates steady “while it assesses the effects of policy changes on the economy.”