The key point to note is that this change applies to the public-sector only. It is a shift away from Sun-Thu work week to Mon-Fri. The half day Friday is for religious reasons. There is nothing we’ve seen so far to suggest the 4.5 days has anything to do with worker well-being.

The feeling on the ground in the UAE is that the private sector will have to follow suit - but no one is quite sure how this will happen yet. The announcement was very sudden. While rumours of this had been circulating for a number of years, this was announced without prior communication this afternoon.

There is some expectation already that private sector companies will be allowed to ‘contract out’ of the half day Friday requirement in employment contracts.

While the work week shift creates complexities with local (key) trade partners such as KSA which will retain Sun-Thu work week, the thinking is that this will benefit the UAE economy by aligning with those countries operating on Mon-Fri.

how... does this work in offices which work around deadlines? i mean for lawyers, you have to file a case, do work by a specific date regardless of monday or saturday. same for accountants or heck, banks. banks can't just say "well its a saturday or a friday. we need you to come in on a monday".

i one idea is to hire more staff and then rotate them but that doesn't scale properly.

genuinely curious how these systems work

Wonder if those 4.5 Day work weeks apply to migrant domestic workers?

Heh, of course not.

So they have to work 40 hours in 4.5 days ?