3-days Eid holiday for Dubai stock market

Dubai's stock market will be closed for three days starting November 6 for Eid Al Adha, according to a bourse statement. Trading will resume on Wednesday, November 9.

Meanwhile, every holiday in the country tends to rake up the issue of disparity between public and private sector holidays with some employees in the private sector very vocal about their feelings of working on days when others are off.

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 UAE private sector Eid Al Adha holidays start from November 5

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Last year, some recruitment experts in the country believed that fewer holidays amount to unfair treatment of the private sector employees and holidays should be aligned with the government employees. But one year on, things have changed and experts are of the view that having a job in hand is much better in these challenging times.

Getting fewer number of public holidays should not be of such importance, considering that private sector is not seeing strong growth.

“This is what the law says and it is not such an important issue after all. The times we are living in are so challenging that companies should be happy to have more days to work, in order to reach their targets,” said an expert with a leading international recruitment company in the country.

“Whilst the obvious and tempting response is a resounding ‘YES’, I think it should be the other way - with many religious and public holidays in the UAE, plus the fact that since the crisis there is less cash about for both private and government sectors, should the government sector be in line with the private sector?” Peter Greaves, Director, Head of Financial Markets at McArthur Murray, Dubai told Emirates 24|7.

“[I remember] jobs for life, best pension pay-out, shortest working hours and longest holidays’ within the UK government sector in the1970/80’s.[It was] over-staffed, over-paid, poor work output; it had to stop and [it] did. Whilst there might be some pressure to do more here in the UAE for locals, we all know the dynamics of this region, especially since the regional crisis has had an impact and the motivation to employ and look after locals across the whole region is very real,” he added.

Another expert in the industry believes that this is not the time to ask for more holidays. “The private sector employer will make sure he sees some returns on his business as in today’s world that has shrunk. People need to work longer – this is what happens when business is down,” said another expert on the condition of anonymity.

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