The complete

guide to
UAEs New
Labor Law
The UAE's new labor law took effect on February 2, 2022, marking the most momentous change to

the existing UAE labor law, also known as Federal Law No. 8 of 1980. The UAE's private sector is

subject to this change. It will apply to companies incorporated in the UAE mainland and will be

supervised by the Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratization ("MOHRE").

The new labor law, first presented by the Emirati government in November 2021, intends to improve

workplace flexibility, combat workplace discrimination, and promote employee safety and efficiency.

These regulations specifically stipulate changes to the length of employment contracts, acceptance

of various work formats, the provision to take different types of leaves, changes in working hours,

compensation, and so on. In case of a conflict between the new law and the old law, the letter and

spirit of the new law will take precedence.

The Minister of Human Resources and Emiratization (MOHRE), Dr. Abdul Rahman Al Awar, stated that

the new law intends to help the UAE's efforts to build a labor market that can adapt to the dynamic

modern world. It seeks to meet the needs of employees and employers, protect employee rights, and

improve the UAE’s competitiveness in recruiting talent and expertise from around the world.

It is going to be stressful for organizations in the UAE to adapt to these changes. HR will have to be at

the forefront to ensure a smooth transition. And a robust, agile, and flexible HR technology suite will

be an invaluable investment to facilitate the change.

Let us dive in to understand what these new changes are, what impact they will have on businesses

and how we, at Darwinbox, can help you navigate most of the major changes.

The Complete Guide to UAE’s New Labor Law | 2

Category The Law
of Law
Contracts Employment Contracts
Abolishes the concept of
unlimited term contracts
and mandates that all
employees must be
employed on fixed-term
contracts that do not
exceed 3 years.
uncertainty.
The system allows
From February 2, 2022,
employers will have 12
months to migrate all their
employees to new
contracts.
maintain offline records
End of Service Gratuity
1) Will be calculated on the
basis of working (and not
calendar) days.
can accommodate
2) The employer may
deduct certain amounts
“due legally or by judicial
ruling” from the end of
service gratuity payable to
an employee.
Impact on How Darwinbox
Businesses Can Help
Fixed-term contracts Darwinbox’s contract
let firms meet resource management system can
needs while staying help in efficient
within budget management of contracts
constraints during following the new guidelines.
times of economic
automatic triggers to be set,
The elimination of so managers and senior HR
unlimited employment management can be notified
contracts allows at important milestones.
workers to be more
mobile and seek better This eliminates the need to
opportunities.
because everything is
This in turn allows available on the system.
companies to find
specialized people Renewal of contracts is a
with in-depth critical task for HR and if this
knowledge for a is not done, there can be
certain project or legal and financial
period of time. implications for a company.
Darwinbox automates the
process for contracts to be
renewed. For least impact
on business and employees.
Learn More
Being extremely
configurable, the system
changes in the ‘end of
service gratuity’
calculations quite
seamlessly.
The Complete Guide to UAE’s New Labor Law | 3
Category The Law Impact on How Darwinbox
of Law Businesses Can Help

Termination
1) Employers are required Darwinbox helps in
to pay all final termination managing different types
payments to employees of notice periods.

within 14 days of the

termination date which will With Darwinbox, it is
include end of service possible to easily
gratuity payable by the accommodate different
employer.

notice periods by having a

distinct set of workflows
2) Either party can for a diverse set of
terminate the employment employees basis their
contract for a reasonable tenure.

reason by giving the other

party at least 30 days and Distinct types of probation

no more than 90 days periods can effortlessly be
prior written notice.
configured in the system

according to the new
3) Employees can guidelines.

terminate their
employment without There can be different
having to serve a notice confirmation workflows
period under specific set basis the employee
grounds mentioned under type. It then becomes
Article 44.

easy to assess the

employee and solicit
4) Within the probationary feedback from their
period, the employer may manager/s to understand
terminate an employee at how that individual has
any point in time. However, performed.

employees are obligated

to provide their employer These workflows are well-
with 14 days' notice if they integrated into the system
choose to terminate their eradicating the need to
employment themselves. maintain additional
paperwork.
Learn More

The Complete Guide to UAE’s New Labor Law | 4

Category
of Law The Law
Leaves Annual Leave
The number of days of
leave remains the same,
with the exception that
one can now legally seek
within minutes.
paid annual leave during
their probation period and
must be paid in full for any
annual leave one takes.
Maternity Leave
geographical location of
Extended up to 60 days
(45 days full pay and an
additional 15 days half-
pay). After the maternity
leave period, a female
employee is entitled to
additional unpaid leave for
up to 45 days for any
existing policies, and
pregnancy related illness.
Parental Leave
A leave of 5 days can be
taken in the 6 months
following the birth of the
child.
Study Leave
The law permits leave of
10 days for an employee
who needs to take exams,
provided they have
worked for the employer
for two years and the
course is taken from a
UAE-accredited
institution.
Impact on How Darwinbox
Businesses Can Help
Since the outbreak of With Darwinbox, it is
the epidemic, extremely easy to modify
businesses have been or set up leave policies
driven by empathy.
Taking time off is The system provides
necessary, and the different approval flows
introduction of these and carry forward flows
leaves allows a that can be selected with
company to just one-click and
demonstrates that it seamlessly adjusted
cares about its according to the
employees.
the organization.
It improves work-life
balance by putting in Darwinbox has a flexible
place provisions for leave policy engine with
various leave pre-built settings that
requirements and allows you to quickly set
decreases stress and up new policies, change
unpaid days off.
assign approval
Stress arising from workflows.
unplanned and unpaid
leaves can have a It is simple to add different
significant impact on weekly offs automatically
the employee to the system, as per the
experience. geography a company
operates within. For
instance, the system can
make an effortless shift to
a 4.5 days workweek
schedule.
Learn More
The Complete Guide to UAE’s New Labor Law | 5
Category The Law Impact on How Darwinbox
of Law Businesses Can Help

Sick /Rest Leave

Employees are entitled to
one paid day off every
week, with the option of
extra weekly leave days at
the company's discretion.

Compassionate Leave
The new law provides for:

1) 5 days leave in case of

the death of an
employee’s spouse.

2) 3 days leave in case of

the death of an
employee’s mother, father,
child, brother, sister,
grandchild, or
grandparent.

Work Work Model

Timings The new law recognizes The changes in work arwinbox’s CM is ideal
and working models such as timings and the
D H

for hybrid teams and can

Modes full-time work, remote acceptance of various be used to seamlessly
work, shared jobs, part- work models are a step handle multiple local &

time, temporary, and towards building global compliances,

flexible work. flexibility at work.

diverse employee types,

and varied functions - all
Workplace flexibility on one platform .

allows businesses to

Working days attract and retain Configure weekly offs,

better quality talent policies, and shifts in
Employers in the private and craft a diverse minutes
sector are free to choose
.

workforce.

the working week for their Managers can ensure high

employees. (Need not be
Sunday-Thursday or
Monday-Friday).
Recruitment expenses productivity of hybrid
are expected to be teams using Timesheets.
lowered and work These can be used to
satisfaction to track billable hours for
increase with these multiple projects at an
changes, all of which activity level.
contribute to a
company's profitability.

The Complete Guide to UAE’s New Labor Law | 6

Category
of Law The Law
Overtime work
Employees to not work
overtime for more than 2
hours each day, and
overtime is limited to 144
hours per three weeks.
Others Anti-discrimination
The new law:
The UAE has taken a
1) Prohibits discrimination
on the basis of race, color,
sex, religion, national
origin, social origin, or
disability at work.
Impact on How Darwinbox
Businesses Can Help
According to the Capture and track time
government, having and attendance with
these work models will features such as Facial
build a cohesive recognition, Geo-tagging,
relationship between geo-fencing, IP
employers and restrictions, no matter
employees to boost where your employees
productivity at lower are.
operational costs.
Easily create overtime
policies that can be
seamlessly integrated to
Payroll.
The ability to define
Overtime slabs & indexing
allows you to ensure
compliance with
government norms.
Workflows can also be
set-up to auto-trigger
alerts to managers when
an employee is working
Overtime.
Learn More
With Darwinbox, orgs can
positive step towards draft and trigger policies
inclusivity by enacting to the employees, get
anti-harassment their acknowledgment,
legislation. and can be complaint by
having a holistic view of
the policy status through
automating digital
signatures for employees
with real-time reports for
Admins.
The Complete Guide to UAE’s New Labor Law | 7
Category The Law Impact on
of Law Businesses How Darwinbox Can Help
2) Prohibits harassment, With this, organizations
bullying, or any verbal, can better address
physical or mental concerns like
violence against productivity loss and
employees at the absenteeism.
acknowledgment on
workplace.
revised documents as per
Employees who work the evolving regulatory
3) Promotes equality for in a harassment-free
women at the workplace environment feel safer
by provisioning equal pay and are more likely to
for work of equal value. stay with the
organization for a long
period, boosting
retention.
Minimum Wage
A minimum salary is to be With the law on
set for private sector minimum wage,
employees according to employees can be
Article 27 of the new law. provided a minimum
standard of living,
which improves overall
workplace productivity.
remain compliant with
Organizations can also
attract better talent
when pay is
standardized.
Darwinbox enables the
admins to maintain a
single source of truth, roll
out revisions, and get
landscape.
Anti-discrimination can be
facilitated by making
people aware of the new
policies, and mandate
sign-off to ensure
employees agree to follow
them.
In case of any harassment,
disciplinary workflows can
be configured. These
workflows can be acted
on directly from the
mobile app which
empowers employees to
raise their voice, escalate
to relevant stakeholders
and enable them to act
quickly to resolve it.
With Darwinbox,
organizations can
accommodate complex
pay structures with
minimum wage validations
set in place to always
local laws.
Off cycle and
asynchronous payroll
processing capabilities
help to address any one-
off use cases and events.
The Complete Guide to UAE’s New Labor Law | 8
Category Impact on How Darwinbox
The Law
of Law Businesses Can Help

Dismissal

Compensation

Employers are to

compensate employees in

the event of an unlawful

(“arbitrary”) dismissal

situation.

Conclusion

The UAE’s new labor law is a move forward in meeting the demands of businesses, protecting employees

and their rights, and attracting talent from around the world. Organizations in the UAE need to comply with

the new labor law by February 2, 2022 and must work quickly to incorporate these laws into their

businesses and educate their employees on how the new labor law will affect them.

Make this shift seamless with Darwinbox’s intuitive and flexible HR Tech suite as your one stop shop and

experience increased operational efficiency, configurability, and agility, keeping in compliance with the new

laws across all your HR processes. It is time to empower your workforce to unlock higher productivity.

Sign up for a demo today to

experience the Darwinbox difference.