Why did UAE change its weekends to Saturday Sunday?

UAE change its weekends| Ground Report| The United Arab Emirates recently announced the changes in working-week. Now it's four days and half-day will start on January 1st. It will be the first country that is friendly with employees.

According to the UAE government, the weekend will begin from Friday to Sunday. On Friday work will start from 7:30 am to 12:00 pm while on Saturday and Sunday is weekends.

Longer weekends to boost productivity and improve work-life balance; starting from 1st of January, 2022, said, the government. While on Friday Muslims has prayers they have an option to work from home.

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UAE change its weekends

As per the economic point of view, the country changes the rule of working days. It will guarantee smooth monetary, exchange, and financial exchanges with nations that follow a Saturday/Sunday weekend, working with more grounded global business connections and valuable open doors for great many UAE-based and worldwide organizations.”

The new working rule will also bring the financial sector in an immediate positioning with the global traders and communication-based transactions like those driving global stocks markets, banks, and financial institutions.

Schools and private companies can also be following this new working rule in UAE said UAE federal government.

According, to the Washington Post, amid the pandemic, several countries have started trying out four-day workweeks, including Spain and Japan.

Monica Malik, an economist at Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank, said she expects many private sector companies in the UAE to follow the Saturday-Sunday weekend, describing the move as a “very meaningful development” alongside other recent reforms said.

Last year, the country made a surprising new set of changes to offset the impact of the pandemic on the economy and continue with the UAE. as a desirable place to live and work for foreigners. He introduced tougher laws against harassment of women, allowed unmarried couples to live together, and decriminalized alcohol consumption altogether. And in January, it opened a path to citizenship for ex-pats.

“Once again, the Emirates position itself as a pioneering country that looks to the future in a courageous and flexible way,” said Nabil al-Qadi, president of Khawarizmi International College, a private university in Abu Dhabi, the Emirati capital. "I don't see any conflict between the decision and religion or the fact that Friday is a holy day."

While the U.A.E. has become more socially liberal, politics is a very different matter. The country is a federation of seven monarchies, where dissenting voices are rarely heard or tolerated.

Top-down decision-making gives ruling sheiks unchallenged control over policy, which can produce sharp turns that surprise the UAE.  A historic moment came in September 2020 when the emirates and Bahrain became the first Gulf States to agree to normalize relations with Israel, a step that most Arab countries had either opposed or been reluctant to take.

"The Emirates has always had its own vision and shape," said Abdullah Baabood, an Omani academic and former director of the Gulf Research Center in Cambridge, noting primarily his decision and the speed with which he sought to normalize relations with Israel. "And many of these issues are somewhat puzzling to the average Arab citizen."

But for many living in the United Arab Emirates, Tuesday's announcement presented another tantalizing prospect. At a time when the pandemic has sparked renewed talk of flexible work styles and four-day workweeks, flipping the weekend and turning Friday into a half-day appears to offer a more manageable schedule and long break.

“I like it because I work with my overseas offices in Europe and now we are aligned,” said Yasmeen Seif, an American-Egyptian communications director for a luxury fashion company. She moved to Dubai, the largest city in the Emirates, 13 years ago, and found a place that encompassed elements of both sides of her identity: a place that was Arab and had appeal and good marketing, she added.

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