Month: January 2024

Employers in the UAE can offer employees benefits, which are above those set out in the UAE Employment Law. To be clear, the UAE Employment Law lists the “minimum rights” for employees.

As per Article 65(1) of the Law. While employers cannot contract away from those minimum rights,

They can offer additional terms, as long as those terms do “not prejudice” the rights set out in the law, but are rather “more beneficial” to the employees, than those in the law. These additional rights can be provided for in any type of a document, be it an 1) offer letter, 2) declaration, 3) agreement, 4) or even an email. 

Notice Period for DIFC employees is governed by the DIFC Employment Law, which is a separate law, from the UAE Employment Law. 

As the DIFC Employment Law, Article 62, parties are required to provide each other with a proper notice, in the event of termination of the employment relationship.

The minimum notice period depends on the duration of employment.

• • If the employment period is less than 3 months, the notice period is 7 days.
  • If the employment is between 3 months to 5 years, the notice period is 30 days.
  • In those case where employment relationship is over 5 years, the notice period is 90 days or 3 months.

Importantly, these are the minimum notice periods.  

Parties can agree to longer periods under the DIFC Employment Law. 

The Notice Period in the UAE, under the UAE Employment Law is a minimum of 30 days. 

Importantly, this is a statutory minimum period.

Which means that, even if the employment contract does not specify a Notice Period, the law obligates employers to provide employees a minimum of 30 days-notice.

Or, if the company does not wish for the employee to serve the 30-day notice, it must compensate the employee for the value of that notice period.

Furthermore, as per the current UAE Employment Law, the maximum duration of the Notice Period is 90 days.

This is in line with the Article 43 of the UAE Employment Law, which is Law No. 33 of 2021. 

Termination of employees in the U.A.E. during their leave, whatever the nature of the leave, can only take effect after the employee returns from leave. In other words, let’s say the employee is on his/her 4-week annual leave, due to return on April 1^st.

A few days into their leave, on March 10^th, the company serves the employee with a termination notice. Giving the minimum 1-month notice. 

That termination notice only takes effect, once the employee comes back to work, or starting from April 1^st. Which means that the employee’s last working day would be April 30^th. 

This is in line with the UAE Labor Law No. 33 of 2021, and Article 35, specifically.