Bahtatboy

The UAE Labour Law states that employees shall be entitled to a minimum of 30 days paid holidays. I understand this to be an aggregate of contractual entitlement plus national holidays.

Assume the following:

An employee has 25 days contractual leave entitlement.
He is contracted to work 5 days a week, with Fridays and Saturdays as non-working days.
In a given year, most of the national holidays fall on a Friday or Saturday, and his company does not grant any compensatory days off in lieu.
There are only 4 national holidays in that given year which fall on a weekday.
Thus the employee gets only 29 days holiday.

Is it correct to say that such calculation results in the employee having less than 30 days paid holidays as calculated in accordance with the Labour Law?

Cypselos

Not a clue about the answer legally but given the spacing of New Year's day and National day as the two fixed ones it's virtually impossible. These fixed days would both need to fall on fri and sat.

It needs to be a leap year for there to be fewer than 5 days of religious holidays for the private sector, if it is it's possible to get down to three days. 2016 looks like it should be safe going by the project dates. But National day and NYD can't both fall on a weekend if it's a leap year.

Meow

In theory yes, but in practice I don't think it happens, and even if it did I suspect you'd be told that in other years you'd get extra days so it all works itself out.

norsk

What if your contract said 21 days and there was not going to be any 'other years'? Theoretically speaking of course..

Meow

I suspect the same answer.

OriginalSunshine

My understanding is that it is in effect 1 month holiday (paid) at the end of each year. Most non western expats would work 11 months, and then go home for one month (fully paid).

25 workings days is giving you 5 calendar weeks which is "more" than the compulsory 30 days.