The UAE authorities announced late last year that in Federal Government departments from 1 January 2022 the working week would be reduced to four and a half days, with the weekend running from Friday afternoon to Sunday night. The authorities also confirmed that all schools and universities would operate from Monday to Friday on the same four and a half-day basis.
Officially, no. For the time being at least, private sector employers are not obliged to change their working patterns. Interestingly, this announcement for the public sector followed shortly after the enactment of the Federal Decree Law No. 33 of 2021 (the New Labour Law) which came into force last month. The New Labour Law no longer expressly specifies Friday as the weekly rest day for employees and therefore private-sector employers do now have the flexibility to effect changes to work patterns as needed. In light of this and given operational hours for schools, universities and the courts are now restricted to Monday to Friday (and no longer Sunday), we have already seen a significant number of private-sector employers take steps to align their weekly work schedule to the public sector.
However, in the absence of a formal ruling or circular by the Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation, we have not seen and do not envisage many private sector employers implementing a four and a half-day working week in practice (and certainly not until a...
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