4 wait for liquidators of the companies and file their cases before the Ministry of Labour to ensure 6 the law is followed through judicial channels. ii. UAE’s resolution to stabilize private sector employment gave businesses a free hand on contract change. According to Ministerial resolution 279, companies affected by Covid-19 could ‘reorganise the work structure’. (Migrant-Rights.org, 2021) iii. The UAE declared that it aims to fully utilize its remote litigation mechanism established early this 12 year, looking to have more than 80 per cent of litigation occur remotely. iv. The UAE also issued the Federal Decree-Law No. 33 of 2021 on the Regulation of Labour Relations, which comes into effect from February 2, 2022. It covers various aspects of the relationship between employers and employees in the private sector workforce. Article 13 of the decree titled ‘Obligations of employer’, lists all the duties companies need to fulfil and their responsibilities towards their employees. Article 13 also urges employers to not force the worker to ‘leave the UAE after the end of the work relationship’, among others. Article 25, regarding wage deduction, puts a cap on the maximum amount of salary that may be deducted at 50 per 7 cent, if an employer has multiple reasons for the wage to be deducted. (See Appendix) c. Qatar i. Last year, Qatar introduced non-discriminatory minimum wage as part of a major ‘historic labour reform’ programme. In addition to the minimum monthly basic wage of 1,000 Qatari riyals QR (275 USD), the new legislation stipulates that employers must pay allowances of at least QR 300 for food and QR 500 for housing, should employers not provide workers with these directly. ii. Qatar further worked upon enhancing monitoring across the board to detect violations, enacting swifter penalties, and strengthening the capacity of labour inspectors. Employers who pay their 8 staff less than the minimum wage will face one-year in jail and QR 10,000 fine. d. Kuwait Despite good efforts, COVID repercussions on businesses continued to affect operations and labour relations. Reports from Kuwait indicated that end of service benefits for expatriates had become a ‘crisis point’, irrespective of whether they lost their jobs due to Kuwaitization. Particularly among expatriates working for state agencies, the country’s liquidity crisis has affected them receiving workplace benefits for several months. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Finance circulated budgetary rules to government agencies and demanded that each entity estimate in its draft budget the amounts of end of service benefits for expatriates and include them in the end-of-service compensation clause in each entity’s draft budget. It further set a 9 ceiling for the number of those whose services have been terminated. 6 Manoj Nair, B. (2021). UAE's construction workforce gets caught up job losses, unpaid salary and gratuity . 14 June 2021, from https://gulfnews.com/business/property/uaes-construction-workforce-gets-caughtup-job-losses-unpaid-salary-and-gratuity-1.1623641334413 7 Huda Tabrez, L. (2021). New UAE Labour Law: When can my employer deduct my wages?. Retrieved 25 November 2021, from https://gulfnews.com/living-in-uae/ask-us/new-uae-labour-law-when-can-myemployer-deduct-my-wages-1.1637847186119 8 Ibrahim, Menatalla. 28 April 2021. Qatar swiftly intervenes to resolve salary issuesafter workers’ protest. Doha News 9 03 October 2021. Indemnity delays to expats at crisis point – Wait for months. Arab Times. https://www.arabtimesonline.com/news/indemnity-delays-to-expats-at-crisis-point-wait-formonths/?fbclid=IwAR3_F1aqtkugv9kJ-FQj90jzvVhh1f_2qVH8yh7rtWfQFPUUFwyQ3RDHEeI Disclaimer: The figures, statistics within the report are based upon the limited documentation of cases submitted to the JFWT platform or separately to MFA. It does not intend to implicate any country, government, industry, employer, etc.