The UAE will move to a 4.5 day work week from January 1, 2022, with Saturdays and Sundays being the official weekend and Friday’s being a half day for federal government employees and schools. While the change has been welcomed by a majority of UAE residents, it has also triggered various opposing comments and reactions. Anavizio, a UAE based intelligence agency, analysed 11,000 social media comments and posts across various social media platforms to gauge overall public sentiment on the change.
The findings show 65% of the opinions in the UAE to be positive and in favour of the changes being made to the work week. Around 11% of the residents were not in favour and had concerns. These concerns were based on religious grounds – Federal employees will be working half-day on Fridays till noon and social media users are concerned about disruption of religious norms and traditions.
Another 11% of the respondents had concerns over following the 4.5 days work week in the private sector. As announcements were made that educational institutions will follow the new working week guidelines social media users pondered over the impact of the change in school and university timings on the private sector. A majority were of the view that it would be better for the private sector to shift to a Saturday-Sunday weekend, whereas others feared that Fridays would eventually become full working days hence disturbing the work-life balance.
The changes to the UAE’s working week also drew reactions from social media users in the Middle East region and from around the world. Around 27% of the regional users praised the UAE and see the country as the role model for the Middle East. Further 3% of the users hoped their countries would implement the same. However, a majority of the social media users (68%) had mixed feelings. They considered the change as too westernized and commented that UAE is forgetting its culture and traditions.
Globally the comments from social media users were similar to regional ones; a mix of support and sarcasm. 42% of the international users expressed support for the UAE as a modernizing agent in the region, whereas rest of them expressed sarcasm about the country and considered the change as going against the religion.
