The employment process for an expatriate at the UAE starts with the employee receiving an offer letter , which contains the details of the job and summarizes the most important aspects of the UAE Labor Law. This document must be signed by the employee and employer, to become legally binding.
The employer can’t not begin the process of searching authorization for the employee without providing the Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratization a copy of the signed offer letter.
The employment contract should be based on the offer letter signed, and needs to be submitted to the Ministry.
This contract must be in a standard template dual language contract in which it should include:
Date of its conclusion, Date the employment is to commence, Nature and place of employment, Length of the contract (if it is a fixed-term contract) and Amount of salary.
In some free zones they are required to use a specific contract that includes the following additional information; Terms and conditions relating to hours or days of work. Terms and conditions regarding holiday leave, holiday pay, national holidays and pay for national holidays; sick leave; and sick pay. Length of notice that the employee and employer must give and receive to terminate the employment. Employee's job title or a brief description of their work. Applicable disciplinary rules and grievance procedures.
Once the employee has been approved by the ministry, employee should enter the UAE on an entry permit and the employer must make an application for a residence visa to the authorities. The employee must go through a medical examination before a visa can be granted. This should be done within 60 days of arrivals. The visas can last between 2 to 3 years and can cost between $400 to $1200. The employer must apply for a labor card which can run $700 to $1700.
If the employee is a male and wishes to sponsor their children to live in the emirates he must have a monthly wage of at least 4,000 AED. Female of any nationality, Syrian ,and Egyptian nationals must earn a monthly salary of 10,000 AED. If a employee wishes to sponsor their parents they must earn 20,000 AED
The UAE government has launched policies that mandates the inclusion of Emirates in the job market , especially in the private sector. To achieve this they have establish quotas and incentives , specially as the policies are not applicable in the free zones. To government is offering this companies incentives such as lower transaction fees for processing employment permits and residency visas for employee meeting the targets establish by the government.
In the UAE there is no minimum wage and no plan to implement one for expatriate employees, other countries like Kuwait have been forced to implement minimum wage for the public scrutiny that they have received for the poor treatment of Domestic workers which has led to countries like the Philippines to ban the deployment of workers to those countries. A non-free zone employer that has more than 50 employees, must provide accommodations to employees who earn 2,000 AED or less a month.
On the other hand UAE nationals required a minimum salary, depending on their level education their minimum salary is from 3,000 to 5,000 AED.
It should be noted that the country of origin of the expatriate employee or passport has a great impact in the wage that the employee will receive. According to a survey performed by Gulf Business western expats make over 12.6% more than Arab and 40.5% more than Asian expatriates.
An example of different nationalities earning less despite the same title and responsibility would be that of a personal assistant. The salaries would be $3,700 (Asian ) , a5072 (Arab ), $5638 (Western).
Under UAE labor law an employee is entitled to annual paid leave depending on their years of service. For employees who have more than six months of services but less than a year are entitle to two calendar days per month. An employee with more than one year’s service is entitled to 30 calendar days per year.
Employees are also entitled to public holidays as declared by the UAE government.
The UAE Government declares the length of each national holiday before the holiday takes place for both the public and private sectors. The lunar calendar determines the dates of some national holidays.
As for sick leave, employees are entitled to 90 days. The first 15 days are with full pay, the following 30 days are with half pay and the last 45 without pay. After the 90 days are over, the employer can terminate the employee. The employee will still be entitled to their gratuity.
Employees are entitled to an end of service gratuity following the termination of employment as long as the employee has a accrued one year of service and they were not dismissed for gross misconduct. The gratuity is calculated using the employee salary before termination at the rate of 21 days’ pay for each year of service up to the first five year of service and 30 days pay for each year in excess of five years. An employee who resigns from employment with less than five year of service is entitle to a reduced gratuity payment.
An employee is not entitled to an end of service gratuity pay if they are entitle to a company pensions or the employers make pensions contributions for an UAE national or GCC national on the employees behalf.
Employees who are hired outside the UAE are also hired outside of the UAE are also entitled to reimbursement of repatriation costs. These costs are the price of travel expenses stipulated in the employment contract. This does not apply to employees who start another job in the UAE within 30 days of termination.
Migrant workers should have the right to leave the country without the permission of the employer.the confiscation of passports or other identity documents of migrant workers is considered to constitute an abusive practice,
If the employer is holding the workers’ identity documents, the workers must have access at all times to the documents, and there should be no constraints on the ability of the workers to leave the enterprise
If you leave the country without any notification can be considered as an illegal act and determined as absconding. Hence, such employee will be treated as absconder (run-away). The employer has the right without prejudice to apply the report about this absence to the relevant authority. The Ministry of Labor can then cancel employment visa and impose a labor ban from working in all emirates of UAE.
Is not uncommon for employers to hold the passport of unskilled workers hostage to keep them from leaving. Those who are able to recover their passport run the risk of their employer accuse them of being run-aways, even when the employer was aware that their employee was leaving for a couple of days.
As a anecdote I know a person from Pakistan who worked as a car mechanic at a shop for multiple years. His mother in Pakistan was dying and he needed to leave immediately to see her before her death , for multiple days the owner of the car shop refused to give him his passport or authorization to leave the country. After the mother died, he was given his passport so that he could return home and he was accused of being a run-away.
UAE nationals have priority to work in UAE and they can only be dismissed with the Ministers of labors approval. There are no other protected class against dismissal .
In the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) and the Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM) an employee who is pregnant or on maternity leave must not have her employment terminate, her position or terms and conditions of employment must not be changed without her consent. A person returning from paternity or maternity leave has the right to return to the same or alternative role with the same terms and conditions and with the same seniority as if they had not taken any leave.
DIFC and the ADGM free zones, employers must not discriminate against any person on the basis of their: Sex, Marital status ,Race ,Nationality ,Religion , and Mental or physical disability.
There are no labor law protecting employees from harassment. In DIFC and ADGM requires employers to maintain a workplace that is free from harassment . There is no specific protection for whistleblowers under the Labour Law,