Amendment to the DIFC Employment Law

April 25, 2024

The DIFC Employment Law (DIFC Law No. 2/2019) was recently amended by virtue of the DIFC Law No. 1/2024. This amendment has introduced for the first time as a conditional obligation on the DIFC-based employers to enrol their UAE/GCC national employees in the DIFC Employee Workplace Savings (DEWS) scheme.

According to the above-mentioned amendment, a UAE/GCC national employee, working within the DIFC, shall be entitled to a top-up payment whenever the statutory contributions paid to the General Pension & Social Security Authority (GPSSA) by the employer are less, by at least AED1,000, than the contributions made by the employer into the DEWS scheme for an expatriate employee earning the same basic salary. The said top-up shall be paid into the DEWS scheme.

Furthermore, the amendments introduced to the DIFC Employment Law address the scenario where an employer or an employee is subject to sanctions preventing them from being enrolled into the DEWS scheme. In such circumstances, the employee's end of service gratuity (EOSG) will continue to accrue on the same basis that was applicable to the EOSG prior to the introduction of the DEWS scheme. The employer will not be liable to compensate the employee for any benefits he was going to receive from the DEWS scheme had he or the employer, not been a sanctioned person.