Saturday, Sunday weekend in UAE from Jan.1, four and a half days work system announced

Gulf Today, Staff Reporter

The UAE Government has adopted the new system of weekly work from Jan1, 2022.

According to the new law, employees will be working for four and a half days per week.

The UAE is the first nation in the world to introduce a national working week shorter than the global five-day week.

The holidays will on Saturday and Sunday, and Friday will be a half-day. 

According to the law, Friday sermons and prayers will be held after 1.15pm all year long in the UAE. 

In September, Gulf Today reported, UAE was considering a Monday-Friday week and marking Saturday and Sunday as the official weekend.

In 2006, the UAE government switched its official Thursday-Friday weekend to Friday-Saturday.

This was done to help business relations by increasing shared office hours with Western countries and to provide a more familiar structure for international visitors.

The UAE is the region's commercial, trade and tourism hub.
In the past year, the country has taken measures to make its economy more attractive to foreign investment and talent.