Maternity leave in UAE: Which firms offer maximum days off?

It isn’t the best scenario when an expecting mom has to leave her job to take care of her newborn.

Increasingly, a greater number of companies are taking this into account and making their policies employee friendly by giving new mothers time off to take care of their little one and encouraging them to get back to work.

Recently, a multi-national company like Amazon improved its maternity leave for full-time employees and extended paternal leave for the first time.

The new decision benefits Amazon employees, who are new birth parents or adoptive parents, if they have worked for the company for at least a year. The revised policy improves paid leave time for new birth mothers, who can now take up to 20 weeks off, including the month preceding the birth of a child.

These moves serve as a great help to those employees who have to juggle between professional commitments as well as family responsibilities.

According to website www.fairygodboss.com here are some of the top companies (globally) that offer the maximum number of days as maternity leave to their female employees.

What’s the guideline for UAE employers?

Within the UAE, as per law, the number of days given as maternity leave varies between the private sector, government and companies in the DIFC.

The UAE offers a statutory leave for private sector employees that allows for 45 days of leave with full pay – including days used before birth.

The mother is then entitled to be absent from work for 100 days (without pay) on the expiration of her leave.

The public sector maternity leave allowance is 60 days with full pay initially and with a further allowance of 100 days of unremunerated leave thereafter. Within the DIFC, minimum maternity leave as due to female employees is 65 working days (excluding the weekends).

The DIFC maternity leave entails 33 days on full pay and 32 days on half-pay.

DIFC Employment Law provides for female employees who have served a year’s continuous employment by the eighth week before the expected week of childbirth.

However, each company can have its own policies in place and can give an employee more than the minimum leave stated as per law. For example, agency MediaCom in the region offers new mothers a six-month maternity leave agreement, as was reported in the media.

The company increased the allocated time off from the 45 days that is statutory in the UAE.

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