The UAE has to go to work every Friday too! Connecting with the non-Arab world, working four and a half days a week

The United Arab Emirates said on Dec. 7 that in a major shift aimed at improving the country's competitiveness, the country shortened its official working week to four and a half days and changed its weekend to Saturday and Sunday.

From Jan. 1, "National Work Week" will be mandatory for UAE government agencies and replace the country's rule of taking a full day off for Muslim prayers on Friday, AFP reported. While becoming the only Gulf country without a Friday-Saturday weekend, the UAE is also in line with the non-Arab world.

Under the new schedule, weekends in the public sector begin at noon on Friday and end on Sunday. Friday prayers at the mosque will be held all year round after 1:15 p.m.

According to the Russian Satellite News Agency, the UAE noted in a resolution: "The weekly rest day is extended by half a day, and the weekly rest days are Saturday and Sunday, and there are half working days on Friday." The legal working hours on Fridays are 4.5 hours – from 7.30 a.m. to 12 noon. "At the same time, employees of state agencies can work remotely on Fridays.

The Emirates News Agency (WAM) said the move was aimed at "better aligning the UAE with global markets" and called the new work week "the shortest in the world" and that "the UAE is the first country in the world to adopt a shorter national work week than the global five-day work week".

The UAE thus became the first Muslim country to abandon Friday as a day of rest, according to the satellite news agency. Friday is a holiday for Muslims, and this day should be spent in the mosque for fridays of special prayers and with loved ones, so in all Muslim countries Fridays are days of rest, and the working week begins on Sundays.