UAE to Switch to Western Schedule of Weekly Holidays
NEW DELHI, Dec 7: The United Arab Emirates has decided to revert back to the western working schedule of Sunday week-end making only four and half days of work in a week with Friday a half day in view of it being the most auspicious day of the week for the Muslims, to better align its economy with global markets.
The oil-producing Gulf state, a regional commercial, trade and tourism hub, now has a Friday-Saturday weekend. As of Jan. 1, 2022, the weekend would start on Friday afternoon. The UAE has in the past year taken measures to make its economy more attractive to foreign investment and talent at a time of growing economic rivalry with neighbouring Saudi Arabia
The change of the system will take effect from the next month when the new year 2022 begins. The government said the move would “ensure smooth financial, trade and economic transactions with countries that follow a Saturday-Sunday weekend, facilitating stronger international business links and opportunities for thousands of UAE-based and multinational companies.”
The week-ends for Emiratis would begin from 12 noon on Fridays to continue till Sunday with the working days rescheduled from Mondays to Thursdays and half days on Fridays to give time to the people to join Friday afternoon prayers.
The decision makes the Gulf Arab state, home to Abu Dhabi and Dubai, one of the few places in the Middle East to operate on Western hours instead of on a Sunday through Thursday working week. Government employees would work half-a-day on Friday, the traditional Muslim holy day and then take Saturday and Sunday off, the announcement said.
The government shift likely will see private industry and schools follow suit, as they did in 2006, when the week changed from Saturday to Wednesday – an Islamic workweek followed in some Muslim countries, such as Iran and Afghanistan.
The Emirati government hailed the decision as making it “the first nation in the world to introduce a national working week shorter than the global five-day week” – a reference to Friday becoming a half-day workday. “The extended weekend comes as part of the UAE’s government efforts to boost work-life balance and enhance social well-being,” the statement added.
Mohammed Ali Yasin, chief strategy officer at Al Dhabi Capital, said the financial sector would benefit from being able to make simultaneous payment settlements with developed markets and the tourism industry would also be a beneficiary.
“It could be a good experiment for other countries in the region,” he said. Friday is a weekly holiday in many predominantly Muslim countries.
The economic experts in the country believe that many private sector companies in the UAE would follow the Saturday-Sunday weekend which they said was a “very meaningful development” alongside other recent reforms. The UAE has liberalised laws regarding cohabitation before marriage, alcohol and personal status laws in addition to introducing longer-term visas as a way to attract and retain talent and encourage more businesses to invest.
(Manas Dasgupta)
