Emiratization simply refers to the employment of the citizens of the United Arab Emirates.  The Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratization has laid down that one of its imminent priorities is to increase Emiratization in the private sector, and for the fulfillment of this purpose, the Emirati Human Resources Competitiveness Council (“Council”), ‘Nafis’ has initiated various national initiatives and incentives.

The Council has lent support to citizens by increasing their competitiveness in the private sector to endow the area with Emirati skills. The primary roadmap aims to get 75,000 citizens into the private sector within five years, as well as to provide a system of inducements to motivate private sector firms to recruit Emirati talent.

The Council has primarily focused its efforts on skilled labor, targeting the growth of Emirati candidates to the private sector to 2% and increasing this to 10% by 2026.  To enforce these employment targets, penalties would be levied upon non-compliant firms. Companies would be required to pay AED 6,000 monthly starting from January, 2023 for each national citizen that has not been employed.

However, companies have circumvented these measures and abused the new regulations by reducing the salaries offered to Emirati candidates. The Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratization (“Ministry”) has launched investigations against various firms to identify the culprit firms and has vowed to deal with them in the right manner.

As an example, the Ministry has cited the case of an undisclosed private company that is currently facing legal prosecution for abrogating the new Emiratization measures. The case came to the attention of the authorities after a complaint was raised by a female Emirati trainee. Investigations have revealed facts relating to employees associated with the Nafis’ program being put under pressure to pay monthly contributions to their employer that were to be taken out of their annual payments. Punitive measures are being taken against the said company, cementing a wave of shutting down of rule-breakers.

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