UAE made a surprise announcement of the weekend transition for the public sector in December
Dubai:
Staff and students combined work and study with weekly Muslim prayers on their first Friday at work in the United Arab Emirates as the Gulf country officially transitions to rest Saturday-Sunday at the weekend.
Some complain of change and businesses are split, many turning to Western-style weekends but other private companies stick to Fridays and Saturdays, as in regional countries. Another bay.
Weekly Prayer Day has always been a free day in the UAE, formerly a Thursday-Friday weekend until 2006.
However, mosques proved busy as worshipers arrived carrying prayer mats as usual, before many of them later returned to the office.
“I’d rather be off (Friday),” said Briton Rachel King, 22, who works in the hospitality industry and has lived in Dubai for six months.
“It’s something we all know and love, having a Friday off and going to some open place and we can do anything. But now it’s going to be Saturday.”
The UAE made the surprise announcement of a public sector transformation over the weekend in December as the country grapples with increasing competition in international business from other Gulf states, especially the UAE. Saudi Arabia.
Government offices and schools will operate four and a half days a week, closing at 12 midnight on Friday with a fixed prayer time of 1:15 p.m., while the Muslim prayer schedule often depends position of the sun.
Of the 195 businesses polled by human resource consulting firm Mercer, only 23% are preparing to follow the four-and-a-half day week, but more than half will move to Saturday weekends- Sunday.
“Luckily I have the same holidays as my kids, but that’s not the case with my husband,” said Fati, who works in an international distribution company.
“He works for a multinational company that hasn’t changed schedules at the moment. I hope they do it quickly, otherwise our family life will be ruined.”
‘Feels a little weird’
According to a Mercer poll, nearly one-third of companies are worried about the impact of being out of sync with other countries in the region.
“We work a lot with Egypt and Saudi Arabia,” said Rana, an employee of an event management company, that some of her teams will have to work on Sunday.
Dubai’s financial district was unusually quiet on Friday with large numbers of telecommuting, especially at a time of high Covid levels when many children are also learning online.
Ahmad Bilbisi, 34, a bank employee said: “Today is the first Friday at work, it feels a bit strange.
“That makes sense for me, at least for the banking industry. We’re now working the same day as everyone else in the world.”
The new arrangement has been a hotly discussed topic on social media, with one Twitter user complaining “feels so wrong”.
“My body and mind have completely adapted to Fridays off. I think today will be a long struggle,” the tweet read.
Sharjah, a neighboring emirate to Dubai, has found a simple solution: make Friday, Saturday and Sunday three weekends.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and was automatically generated from the feed provided.)
