What Day Is It? UAE Works On Friday For First Time

Dubai Workers and schoolchildren juggled work and studies with daily Muslim prayers on the first ever working Friday in the United Arab Emirates as the Gulf country formally switched to a Saturday-Sunday weekend. 

 Some lumbered at the change and businesses were resolve, with numerous moving to the Western- style weekend but other private enterprises sticking with Fridays and Saturdays, as in other Gulf countries. 

 The daily day of prayer has always been a free day in the UAE, which had preliminarily observed a Thursday-Friday weekend until 2006. 

 Still, kirks appeared busy as worshippers carrying prayer mats arrived as usual, ahead numerous of them latterly headed back to the office. 

"I'd rather take (Friday) out," said 22- time-old Briton Rachel King, who works in the hospitality assiduity and has been living in Dubai for six months. 

"That's what we all know and love, having a Friday out and going to certain places that are open and we could do effects. But now it's going to be Saturday."

 The UAE made the surprise advertisement of the weekend switch for the public sector in December as it grapples with rising competition in transnational business from other Gulf countries, particularly Saudi Arabia. 

 Government bodies and seminaries will operate four-and-a-half-days per week, closing at 12 pm on Fridays for a fixed prayer time of 115 pm, whereas the Muslim prayer schedule generally depends on the position of the sun. 

 Out of 195 businesses polled by mortal coffers consultancy Mercer, only 23 percent were preparing to follow the four-and-a-half-day week, but further than half would switch to Saturday-Sunday weekends. 

"Luckily I've the same days off as my kiddies, but that is not the case for my hubby," said Fati, who works in an transnational distribution company, asking not to give her full name. 

"He works for a transnational that hasn't changed its schedule for the moment. I hope they will do it snappily, else our family life will be ruined."

'Feels a bit weird'

 Nearly a third of companies are upset about the impact of being out of sync with other countries in the region, the Mercer bean plant. 

"We work a lot with Egypt and Saudi Arabia," said Rana, an hand of an events company who said some of her brigades would have to work on Sundays. 

 Dubai's fiscal quarter was surprisingly quiet on Friday with large figures working ever, especially at a time of rising Covid situations when numerous children are also doing online training. 

" Moment is the first working Friday, it feels a bit weird," said Ahmad Bilbisi, 34, a banking hand. 

"It makes sense to me, at least for the banking assiduity. We're now working on the same day as everyone differently in the world."

 The new arrangement was a major talking point on social media, with one Twitter stoner complaining"it just feels so wrong". 

"My body and mind have completely acclimatised to having Fridays off. I suppose moment is going to a long hard struggle,"the tweet reads. 

 Sharjah, an emirate neighbouring Dubai, has plant a simple result calling Friday, Saturday and Sunday as a three- day weekend.