# What Public holidays do you get off work?



## HamishUK (Oct 20, 2009)

Hi all,
I was just wondering what days you get off work as public holidays. My employment contract states that:

"The Employee is entitled to leave on official holidays, as announced by the public authorities in the United Arab Emirates, with full wage."

However asking my HR Dept. it seems this only amounts to 1st Jan and 2nd December. Is this normal? After looking at a few sites it seems there are many more holidays than this, or are these not "official holidays"??

Cheers


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## Elphaba (Jan 24, 2008)

You are entitled to quite a few days public holidays - provided that they fall during the working week. You link is pretty much correct, but note that dates for any religious holidays may vary, particularly for Eid al-Ahda and Eid al-Fitr.
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## Gavtek (Aug 23, 2009)

Our contract states that we get 12 public holidays. If they fall on a weekend, we generally take the Sunday off.


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## Ogri750 (Feb 14, 2008)

There has been a change in the last few years, in that, if a public holiday fell on a Friday/Saturday, the employees would have been given the day off before/after.

Now it is more commonplace that there is no alternative day, Friday/Saturday is the day off


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## sdh080 (Jan 20, 2010)

Is there one this week?

We've just had a memo about Thursday night being "dry"


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## Elphaba (Jan 24, 2008)

sdh080 said:


> Is there one this week?
> 
> We've just had a memo about Thursday night being "dry"


The holiday falls on Friday so no day off. Bear in mind that Islamic holidays begin at sunset.

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## stewart (Jun 21, 2009)

Gavtek said:


> Our contract states that we get 12 public holidays. If they fall on a weekend, we generally take the Sunday off.


Your a lucky person then, I have not seen many contracts stating that.
Generaly it is as Elphaba said.


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## Midos (Jun 25, 2010)

As Gavtek said , my contract states 12 holidays as well. If they fall Friday/Saturday, we take the first following week day. I think it is a rule of the FreeZone.


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