Status: 07.12.2021 2:04 p.m.
The United Arab Emirates are adapting their working week to western countries. From January onwards, work in the Muslim Federation will also be from Monday to Friday – albeit a little shorter than usual elsewhere.
In the United Arab Emirates, work will only take place Mondays to Fridays in future. The Emirates announced that today. The Muslim federation with the well-known cities of Abu Dhabi and Dubai is becoming one of the few places in the Near and Middle East that aligns itself to Western schedules. Usually there is a working week from Sunday to Thursday.
Traditionally, Friday is a day off in Muslim countries and the most important day of the week, similar to Sunday for Christians and the Sabbath for Jews. Then Muslims hold the community prayer, which is mandatory for men of the Islamic faith. The government of the Emirates announced that government officials would only have to work half a day on Fridays in order not to disrupt the Friday prayers.
“Social well-being” through a long weekend?
The aim of the change is to better align the working week with global markets and thus to facilitate international trade, wrote the state news agency WAM. The UAE, like other Gulf states, want to become more independent of the income from the oil industry and, in return, to broaden their economies through trade, for example.
The Emirates are the first country in the world to introduce a work week that is shorter than the five-day week that is common around the world, the government said: “The extended weekend is part of the efforts of the UAE government to improve work-life Increase balance and promote social well-being. ” In addition, the aim is to improve competitiveness. In addition to employees in the public sector, employees in the private sector will only work four and a half days in the future. The regulation is also to be extended to schools.
Long working hours increase the risk of heart attacks
A study by the World Health Organization (WHO) came to the conclusion in May that weekly working hours of 55 hours or more are associated with a significantly higher risk of heart attacks and strokes. In the Muslim Emirates, working hours between 40 and 50 hours have been the order of the day.
In many countries such as Germany and France, working hours of 35 to 40 hours a week are the norm. According to the study, however, it is often well above the critical limit of 55 hours per week, especially in Southeast Asia and the West Pacific. According to the study, the number of deaths from heart disease associated with long hours rose by 42 percent between 2000 and 2016.