What does article Article 14 say?

abu dhabi — Article 14 of the UAE Labour Law states that the Labour Department may not give its approval to the employment of nonnationals until it is satisfied that there are no unemployed nationals registered with the employment section who are capable of performing the work required.

Saqr bin Ghobash Saeed Ghobash, Cabinet Member and Minister of Human Resources and Emiratisation, said the ministry stressed to put into force Article No (14) of the law on organising the labour relations, which entitles Emirati jobseekers and gives them priority to occupy vacant jobs in the private sector.

Ghobash said a mechanism has been laid down to put into effect Article No (14) to guarantee that the article will be well implemented. The minister said that as per the article, no work permit would be issued to any non-Emirati employee in the private sector if an Emirati jobseeker registered in the ministry’s database was found and all the job roles are applied to him/ her. Article (14) also takes into consideration the interests of all parties of employment.

The Emiratisation programme started a couple of years ago when federal and local governments in the UAE launched a number of initiatives such as the creation of several entities including Tanmia, the National Human Resources Employment Authority, Abu Dhabi Tawteen Council and the Emirates Nationals Development Program to promote Emiratisation.

The government however gave great importance to the subject of Emiratisation in 2013, having announced that was to be the year of Emiratisation along with launching the “Absher” initiative.

Absher is based on four main themes, namely the creation of job opportunities for nationals, vocational guidance and counselling, training and development, and the encouragement of nationals to work in the private sector with the aim to increase the current number of UAE nationals working in the private sector by tenfold by the year 2021.