Private sector welcomes holidays

Dubai: Companies have welcomed the government's decision to give the private sector the same number of holidays as the government sector, saying they will be able to plan better because they will not have to wait for government departments to re-open.

According to a ministerial decision issued by Dr Ali Bin Abdullah Al Ka'abi, private sector employees will get a four-day holiday from Friday, December 29, to Monday, January 1, for Eid Al Adha.

Andrew Kwok, contracts manager at SembCorp Engineers and Constructors Middle East, said: "For the first time we do not need to postpone work just because government bodies are still on holidays."

A human resources manager at a contracting company said when the same number of days off are not given, companies need to postpone a lot of paperwork due to longer holidays given to the public sector.

Noel Dolan, Director at Al Naboodah Laing O'Rourke, said: "We can plan our schedule easily because we will be working on the same days, and will not be missing out on anything."

Construction will go on

On the other hand, work on construction sites will continue and companies have promised to compensate workers as per the labour law.

"We will only get two days off from the site, which is on December 31 and January 1. We will be working as usual on December 30. Anyone who works on the site during the two-day holiday will be given overtime. We cannot afford to take any extra days off because they are very critical," said Ruby Alcober, Human Resource manager from ARC Construction.

Work on construction sites during the holidays is decided by the availability of building material and when the supplier will go back to work, according to several contracting companies.

"The management has not decided yet the days off for workers, but most probably we will give on-site workers one or two days holidays and pay them overtime for the remaining days," said Kwok.