Small businesses in the UAE are being urged to take a proactive approach to ensure they comply with the country’s expanded ‘Emiratisation’ rules. The expansion marks a significant shift in the country’s approach and it presents new opportunities and challenges for businesses. We’ll speak to Dubai-based lawyer on what it means for employers in the region.
Emiratisation is a core policy in the UAE which aims to provide Emirati citizens with increased job opportunities and career growth within their home country. It’s designed to encourage businesses to hire and train local talent as the UAE tries to reduce reliance on foreign workers and bolster its economic development.
On 6 June last year the Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation issued Ministerial Decision 279 of 2022 that introduced new measures aimed at increasing the number of UAE citizens working in the private sector. Those rules caught larger private companies with 50 or more employees and had a deadline of 1 January 2023 for those businesses to have started the process of recruitment of UAE nationals to meet the targets set. On 11 July, the UAE government expanded the programme to include private companies with between 20 and 49 employees.
Under the new rules, selected businesses will be required to hire at least one Emirati citizen by 2024, with the requirement increasing to two Emiratis by 2025. The decision will be applied to targeted establishments across 14 key sectors of the economy, so it’s very wide-ranging.
Luke Tapp has been highlighting this issue in his Out-Law article; ‘UAE employers must take proactive approach to Emiratisation expansion’, emphasising how the authorities are actively enforcing the new targets. He says a failure to comply with the specific quotas for large and small employers within the UAE will result in heavy fines so all businesses should begin thinking of creative measures to recruit Emiratis and incorporate nationals into their workforce.
So, let’s hear more about this policy and what employers should be doing to comply with it. Earlier Luke joined me by video-link from Dubai to discuss it:
Luke Tapp: “Thanks Joe. Emiratisation is a huge topic, a very hot topic amongst our clients within the UAE, it's having an impact on international clients, it’s having an impact on regional clients. The legislation that was published last year and was enforced at the beginning of this year is being actively enforced by the authorities. Where companies are not complying with their amortisation obligations it’s resulting in penalties and business disruption for our clients within the UAE. So, it is extremely important that clients are taking a proactive approach to ensuring that they are compliant with the Emiratisation requirements that are in force at the moment.”
Joe Glavina: “The title of your Out-Law article is ‘UAE employers must take proactive approach to Emiratisation expansion’. What does ‘proactive’ mean in practice?”
Luke Tapp: “What it means in practice is they stay on top of the number of Emirati employees that they're being required to recruit because of the Emiratisation legislation. The way in which the particular number, the quota, that's applicable to every organisation is calculated depends on a variety of factors, particularly the size of the workforce, but also the industry, the performance around Emiratisation, the performance of the business generally. So, the number changes from time to time and a report is supposed to be produced every six months by the authorities to identify the number of Emiratis that the organisation needs to recruit during that period. So, it's really important from that perspective that the company stays on top of those reports. We recommend getting a printout of these reports at least every three months, but could be every six months, to stay on top of the number of Emiratis they are required to recruit. Then on the other side, of course, there's being proactive in relation to the recruitment, the engagement, of Emiratis. So, engaging in schemes such as the NAFI scheme, being engaged with the Emirati community, having recruitment campaigns, working out where in the organisation is best to be recruiting Emiratis. So, it's being proactive on both sides, one from the compliance side but the other one from the engagements perspective.”
Luke’s article on this looks at some of those issues in more detail if you would like to read it. That’s ‘UAE employers must take proactive approach to ‘Emiratisation’ expansion’ and we’ve put a link to it in the transcript of this programme.
LINKS
- Link to Out-Law article: ‘UAE employers must take proactive approach to Emiratisation expansion’
