Tim Elliot: Welcome to Lawgical, the U.A.E.’s first legal podcast. My name’s Tim Elliot. Lawgical comes to you from the Dubai-based legal firm, HPL Yamalova & Plewka. And here is the Managing Partner, Ludmila Yamalova. It’s good to see you.
Ludmila Yamalova: Good to be here with you, Tim, as always.
Tim Elliot: This time, today, just a quick look at the job seekers visa. This is a new announcement, Ludmila, and it’s in accordance with U.A.E. Cabinet Resolution 65 of 2022. Really, in simple terms, this is if you’re looking for work, you are welcome to come and look essentially.
Ludmila Yamalova: That’s exactly right. The resolution you mentioned, which is the Cabinet Resolution 65 of 2022 is otherwise known as the new U.A.E. immigration law. This is quite a large legislative source of information that ultimately introduces fairly significant reforms into the U.A.E. residency or immigration framework. One of these announcements or one of the new changes is this job seekers visa, which is a very specialized visa that allows that who want to visit the U.A.E. to basically explore employment opportunities to apply for a very specialized visa to do exactly that. This is truly one of a kind and the first visa of this type that this country has offered, so this is somewhat groundbreaking. In many ways, having lived here for so many years, I personally feel that this was such a tremendous positive step forward because, let’s face it, the U.A.E. over the years has become more appealing and attractive for people to come and want to live here and work here, and at the same time, it is perhaps not as easy to find a job here as it was before. Many people do want to come and explore and see what opportunities there are here. Through the years, I have seen over and over again, people will come with a tourist visa and they will stay here on a tourist visa while trying to look for a job. Those visas usually are shorter in time historically, and sometimes they will even start trying out and working a little bit. All that, previously, was actually illegal to do, technically speaking. It was done often, but it was illegal. In the past you could get a tourist visa, and that means you come here for tourism. When you start looking for a job, in technical terms, there was an inconsistency between the type of visa you came here with and the actual activities that you were pursuing here while in the country.
Now this particular visa, and it is Article 2021, to be precise, now offers a very specialized visa and it is called a job seekers visa. More importantly, this particular visa does not require a sponsor or a guarantor, which was the case before. Often in the past when you wanted to come visit the U.A.E. on a visa, you needed somebody here on the ground to be your guarantor, or your sponsor, and they would have to also present documents and ultimately they would be responsible for you. Now, under this new immigration law and this particular visa, you don’t need to have a sponsor here. You do not need an individual or a company who you are trying to see and explore whether you could actually work for them or not. In other words, it is a self-sponsored visa.
But it is not available to everyone. There are some limitations or eligibility requirements for this kind of visa to be available or offered. At a high level, those who qualify must meet certain conditions. One of which is the applicant must be an experienced worker at either the first, second, and third professional level as classified by the Ministry of Human Resources & Emiratisation (MOHRE).
Tim Elliot: Okay. What does that mean precisely?
Ludmila Yamalova: It’s actually a fairly complicated and multifaceted exercise, if you will. This would require you to go onto the Ministry of Human Resources & Emiratisation website and they have a tab there for the classification system that is pages and pages and pages. Basically, that sets out categories of employees or professions, and within each one of these categories is a whole long list of different types of professions that fall into each of these categories. Ultimately, it is professionals, if you will, such as engineers, doctors, tech professionals, teachers, and so on and so forth. The categories differ on the basis of what industry, specifics, or the professional qualifications. At a high level, there are many details of many different professions that are listed in there. If you wanted to know whether you qualify, you literally need to go on and download one of these classification documents and go one by one to see if you fit and into which of the specific categories you would fit. The categories are pretty expansive and pretty inclusive. It is not like it only applies to a doctor, for example. Under each one of these levels of categories, there are dozens of professions. That is one eligibility requirement.
The other eligibility requirement is if you are not one of those experienced workers, then you have to be a recent graduate. In other words, you can also qualify for the job seekers visa if you are a recent graduate, but you must not be more than two years out from your graduation date. In other words, you must be a really recent graduate, and you have to be a really recent graduate from one of the world’s top 500 universities in the world as classified by the U.A.E. Ministry of Education.
The first classification we are talking about is in terms of experienced workers. These classifications are listed by the Ministry of Human Resources & Emiratisation, otherwise referred to as MOHRE.
Now with this particular classification, we are talking about recent graduates. The classification here is set by the U.A.E. Ministry of Education. Once again, you would have to access the website, and then you will see a whole list under the Ministry of Education of the 500 universities that the U.A.E. deems to be the best. Graduates from these universities would qualify to apply for a job seekers visa.
But all in all, whether you are an experienced worker or a graduate, the minimum educational requirement has to be a bachelor’s degree or the equivalent, whatever that may mean. Basically, that is in terms of the qualifications, if you will, and then as part of the visa application you will also need to provide financial security. The law itself, interestingly enough, basically states a requirement for financial security, but it does not state what that amount is. Since then, there have been regulations that have been passed to further highlight certain aspects of the law, and as per this regulation with regard to financial security for this particular visa, it is a payment of 1,000 to 2,000 dirhams. It is not at all a significant financial commitment that you need, which was the big question for a while until the regulations came forward, because if you are coming here to look for a job, theoretically you probably don’t have a lot of money to show and neither do you want to spend a lot of money to try to look for a job. This particular matter of financial security, I think, is quite reasonable and certainly makes this particular visa a lot more palatable.
Tim Elliot: Alright. Let’s assume you fulfill all those requirements. You have been to the right university. You are at the right level to come into the country. You fulfill the prescribed financial security. How long does the visa last for job seekers visa and if you then find employment, how easy is it to switch to a permanent residence visa?
Ludmila Yamalova: The duration of this particular job seekers visa actually is granted first for 60 days. This in itself is a quite significant departure from the previous practice because previously the default was 30 days, depending on nationality, and you could extend it one more time, but that was basically it. Now this time the default is 60 days, and it can actually be renewed several times, up to 180 days, depending on the circumstances. What that means is that theoretically this kind of visa allows you to be in the country for up to six months looking for a job. Obviously, this in a way benefits both, the applicant and the country, because it means that a person would have enough time to look for the right job and that means that once he or she finally secures employment, at least in theory, that employment opportunity will be more stable than what had happened in the past, because the time was running so fast that you would just take the first opportunity you could just to allow yourself to stay in the country. Now, in theory at least, with this kind of option, you can really take your time and make sure that whenever you commit yourself, and equally so for the company, whenever they decide to hire you, that this is more or less the right fit and therefore would provide some level of consistency and security for both parties.
Tim Elliot: This is the thing, isn’t it? We have talked about this before at some length. You have time to do your due diligence. By the same token, whoever is going to employ you, they have time to do the same. It’s a good thing for a steady job market, isn’t it?
Ludmila Yamalova: For sure. Perhaps I would offer that this is exactly the reason why these sweeping reforms in immigration policies took place and why these specific types of visas were introduced. There were so many other consequences or repercussions that would follow in the past, all stemming from the fact that the parties would commit themselves to a job that was not really right for one or the other party. For example, if you recall, there were all sorts of employment bans before that would be applied to employees if they were to resign within the first six months or within one year of their employment, and it was all because what was often happening was that somebody would come to the country on a 30-day tourist visa, find a job, get a job just so they did not have to go back, knowing full well that they were not going to really stay with that job for a long time, and the next opportunity that would present itself, two or three weeks later, they would jump. This was why there were all sorts of employment regulations that existed and actually penalized these kinds of behaviors because that was very unstable and unsettling for the business market, as you may appreciate. In fact, you need to have this whole legal ecosystem, if you will, to try to deal with the repercussions of these kinds of jumpers that would come and jump on the first job that they could just so they could find another job that was better simply because they did not have enough time and they did not have the luxury to really take the time and make their first choice a proper one.
Tim Elliot: Because it was always kind of amplified here, wasn’t it, that situation? People would come and take that first job within 30 days and then you would have a rebound effect almost. There is no time to build any trust.
Ludmila Yamalova: This is exactly why we saw the employment practices, the employment laws, the immigration practices that developed as a result of this. What would often happen, at least in these specific examples from my own practice here is that somebody would jump on a job because it gave him a job and residency, then two or three months later they would want to jump to a better job, a job they would have preferred to begin with, but it was not available at that time. Because there was an employment ban, because they resigned within let’s say six months from the time they started the job, there were different bans that applied. What they would do was they would resign, and then because they knew they had an employment ban – this was not a matter of immigration, but an employment ban – and they would go and work for the other new company while having an employment ban. It was all good, until it wasn’t, on other words, until you were caught. In my practice, I have had a few of these examples where people were caught. Even as the previous company was upset with that employee jumping, and they found out that he or she went and worked for the next company, while still having an employment ban, that person, this particular client of mine, the immigration inspector came and inspected the premises and then fined the company 50,000 dirhams and also fined this particular individual and deported him. As you said, there is an amplified effect. Truly the circumstances and the consequences were quite severe, and it was all because of basically this different part of the ecosystem and these different tools existed to ultimately deter these kinds of practices. It was all too real. By the way, at the time in particular, when working for another company while having an employment ban, that particular practice leads to deportation.
Let’s say if you were working, in the same case, and by the way, this is again from my personal experience and it is actually from the same client, there was another employee at the same time that was working for that second company on a different visa, but he was not under an employment ban. In that case, there was just a penalty. It was a several thousand-dirham penalty, but there was no deportation.
For this other client, he was deported, and once you are deported from the U.A.E., you are deported for life. That is an example.
Now presumably this new type of visa will make that practice and all those stories and eventualities a thing of the past. Now people can actually come here and be very transparent about why they are coming into the U.A.E. and not have to hide in somebody’s shadow and actually be very open even with all of the companies that they are applying to. We are here in the U.A.E. on a job seekers visa looking for a job. I think, all in all, it’s a great development for the country and all for all those prospective recruits that are wanting to come into this country and contribute to the job market.
Tim Elliot: That’s another episode of Lawgical, this time, everything you need to know about the job seekers visa here in the U.A.E., or most, at least, of what you need to know. Our legal expert, as always, Ludmila Yamalova, the Managing Partner here at Yamalova & Plewka. Thank you
Ludmila Yamalova: Thank you, Tim, as always.
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