Good news for workers in Dubai! At least for those working in government, anyway. Effective January 2019, there will now be 13 leave options available for workers, thanks to the passing of the new human resources law.
The new law has given workers more chance to spend time with their families for special occasions as well as provide them a chance to extend their rest in case they get sick.
Khaleej Times reported that the following will be the 13 leave options available for workers beginning January 2019:
- annual leave
- sick leave
- maternity leave
- paternity leave
- mourning leave
- leave for d3ath-related events
- Haj vacation
- participation in events
- accompanying sick leave
- leave for partner
- study leave
- leave without pay
- leave for national service and reserve
Thanks to these new leave options, it would be easier for workers to spend time with their families. It is also worthy of note that ‘participation in events’ is already an option to file for leave. It would be interesting to see whether employers would accept this type of leave just as easily as the other options.
Based on the stipulations of the new law, managers have 10 days to respond to leave requests. If the managers fail to respond to the request, the leave becomes automatically approved.
The length of annual leaves will also be increased; though the number of days is dependent on the working grades:
- 18 working days for grades 3 or below
- 25 working days for grades 4 to 11
- 30 working days for staff 12 and above
While there’s a huge difference between the annual leave credits among the working grades, a lot of workers expressed happiness that the numbers had been increased.
But while this upcoming development is great news for government workers in Dubai, many employees in private companies hoped that it would also be extended to non-government employees.
