A new UAE federal-government schedule takes effect: Monday through Thursday are full workdays, Friday stops at noon, and the weekend moves to Saturday and Sunday.
Friday became both a workday and the beginning of the weekend.
For years, the United Arab Emirates followed a workweek familiar across much of the Gulf:
Sunday through Thursday.
Friday and Saturday formed the weekend.
Then the calendar changed.
Effective Saturday, 1 January 2022, UAE federal-government employees moved to a schedule designed to align more closely with international business markets.
Monday through Thursday became full working days.
Friday remained a working day too.
Just not all of it.
Federal employees were scheduled to work Friday morning, with the regular working day ending at noon. Friday afternoon then joined Saturday and Sunday to form a two-and-a-half-day weekend.
The result was a four-and-a-half-day federal-government working week.
Dubai and Abu Dhabi government bodies adopted the same general pattern, while Sharjah went farther for its local-government employees and adopted a four-day week.
There is an important limitation.
The UAE did not order every private company in the country to adopt a four-and-a-half-day week. Private-sector employers operated under separate labour arrangements and could choose schedules suited to their businesses.
The shift was partly economic. Moving government offices toward Monday through Friday reduced the mismatch with international markets operating on the conventional business week.
It also created one of those administrative sentences that sounds less straightforward the longer you examine it:
Friday was now a working day.
Friday afternoon was part of the weekend.
Saturday and Sunday were also the weekend.
And Monday began the next official working week.
The calendar had not gained any additional days.
The UAE had simply redistributed them.
A federal government realigned its week with global markets by turning Friday into half workday, half weekend.
The UAE did not abolish Friday. It divided the administrative responsibilities.
Evidence status
Sources
Official / Government
Official UAE Government Platform — Working hours in the public sector
Emirates News Agency — UAE Government announces four-and-a-half-day working week
Government of Dubai Media Office — Changes to the working week
Original language: English