Good conduct certificate mandatory for Job change in the UAE

Good conduct Certificate in the UAE

Security checks are now covering all new work permits, including workers switching jobs in the UAE, official sources told. According to a source, it is now mandatory for workers planning to change jobs in the UAE to produce a certificate of good conduct, regardless of the length of their service.

From June 1, the good conduct certificate will be mandatory for all domestic workers, revoking the exemption currently in force for Filipino and Indonesian workers, according to the source.

“Expatriate workers planning to switch jobs will now have to produce certificates of good conduct from the local police,” an official source told. The source said now candidates applying for their first job in the UAE and those planning to change jobs will have to produce certificates of good conduct.

“For candidates applying for their first job in the UAE, the security screening of job candidates means that they will have to produce good conduct certificates from their home countries, or the country, or countries, of their residence for work, or study, for the past five years, while those who wish to change jobs can obtain the good conduct certificate from local police,” the source said.

Security Vetting

The source affirmed the security vetting is a mean of judging a job candidate’s past mistakes, character, and fitness, and to identify potential hiring risks for safety and security reasons and to ensure the safety and security of the employees as well as their public and private employers.

If the applicant for a first job in the UAE has lived and worked in more than one country in the past five years, a certificate of good conduct from each country must be produced.

The source said residents born and lived in the UAE until they apply for a job will now also be required to present a good conduct certificate, which they can obtain from the local police.

The source said, for now, workers who apply for renewal of work permit are not required to produce a certificate of good conduct.

However, the source said, those born and lived in the UAE for a while but left for home or another country before applying for a job, must produce a good conduct certificate from their home country or the country of their residence for work, or study, for the past five years.

The good conduct certificates must be certified by the UAE’s missions abroad or attested at customer happiness centres of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation.

The security screening is only mandatory for job candidates but not for their dependents or family members.

The certificate is not required for tourists, students and people who come to the UAE on medical or mission visas, issued for the purpose of temporary work in the country for three months and can be renewed for a similar period.

The good conduct certificate will be produced on applying for a job visa, issued by residency departments to foreigners who wish to work for a company in the UAE upon the approval of the Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation.

The visa allows the holders to enter the UAE once and is valid for two months from the date of issue. When the employee has entered the country on the basis of the job visa, the sponsoring company will arrange to complete the formalities of medical and stamping his residence within 60 days.

Now, do Multiple UAE Jobs without Employer's consent

Multiple UAE Jobs without Employer's consent

Skilled workers, both Emirati and expatriates, can now enter a multiple employer contracts after obtaining approval of the Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation, according to a new ministerial decision.

Under the decision signed by Naser Bin Thani Al Hameli, Minister of Human Resource and Emiratisation, companies can recruit skilled workers — holder of university degree or higher and those who completed their diploma in any field — from inside the country of overseas under part-time contracts, which allow these workers to take several part-time jobs without approval of the original or other employers. The new system is implemented alongside with the existing system which allows employers and workers to establish a normal business relationship under fixed-term or indefinite contracts.

Al Hameli said the new system will enhance the flexibility of the labour market and meet the needs of the employers from the existing labour market and thus reduce dependence on labour being imported from outside the country. Under the new part-time contract, workers will put less than the usual eight hours a day or less than 48 hours per week and must receive a weekly rest of not less than one day.

Al Hameli said the "part-time contract" will reduce the operational costs of employers who recruit workers from inside the UAE.He added the system contributes to attracting and retaining the skills and expertise to enhance the productivity of the labour market in the country.The part-time contracts are limited only to specialised professions that require a high degree of scientific, technical and administrative skills and a minimum university qualification as well as  technical jobs that require mental, scientific and technical as well as practical and supervisory skills of workers who completed their two or three year diploma in any field, according to Al Hameli.

Al Hameli stressed that "the part-time contract is subject to the same rules and penalties applicable to the regular employment contracts, either fixed-term or non-fixed-term, out of keenness to protect the rights of the parties to the employment relationship."The original employer shall bear the fees levied by the ministry when contracting with a worker under the part-time job contract.

The reduced fees for skilled labour shall be between  Dh150 and Dh2000 according to the category in which the establishment falls within the classification system of companies.

The original employer shall also bear the employee's annual leave, the end of service benefits and any other financial obligations in proportion to the number of actual working hours and the amount of the wage paid by the worker.The decision obliges each employer to provide the worker with the requirements and working environment stipulated in the ministry's regulations.

According to the decision, the employer may not require the worker to work more than the hours agreed upon without the written consent of the worker. The employer may not prevent the worker from working in a similar facility to his company under the non-competition clause or for disclosure of the secrets of the work unless a court ruling has been issued to this effect.

The resolution states that a part-time contract may not be converted into a regular contract until after the end of the part-time employment contract, so that each party may freely contract with the model it accepts.

Infosys to Open Tech Hub in the US, hire 1,000 people

The hub will train, upskill and reskill engineers in the technologies required for businesses to accelerate their digital transformations.

Global software major Infosys said it will soon open a technology and innovation hub in the US state of Connecticut and hire about 1,000 American workers by 2022."We will open our next technology and innovation hub at Harford in Connecticut and hire 1,000 American workers in the state by 2022," said the IT major in a statement.

The Connecticut hub will focus on insurance, healthcare and manufacturing to bring the company to the eastern state's clients and serve as the global hub for its InsurTech and HeathTech efforts."Investment in Connecticut is a part of our commitment to accelerate innovation for American enterprise by amplifying local talent and shrink the IT skills gap in the marketplace," asserted the statement.

The announcement of the company's fourth hub in North America comes 10 days after its first hub was inaugurated on March 6 at Indianapolis in Indiana state where it hired 2,500 American workers over the past year.

The hiring is part of the company's May 2, 2017, decision to recruit 10,000 Americans by setting up four such hubs across the US and focus on new technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, user experience, emerging digital technologies, cloud and big data.

The company earlier announced opening its second such hub at Raleigh in North Carolina in July 2017 and the third at Providence in Rhode Island in August 2017, where it plans to hire about 2,000 techies each by 2021-22.

The Indianapolis hub will train, upskill and reskill engineers in the technologies required for businesses to accelerate their digital transformations.

The hiring of Americans is seen as a fallout of US President Donald Trump's executive order on H1-B visas in April 2017, as clients in North America contribute about 60 percent of the $10.3-billion company's software export revenue annually.

"Connecticut's assets and talent pipeline attract high calibre firms to the state, and I look forward to the value Infosys bring to our business community," said Connecticut Governor Dannel P. Malloy on the occasion.

Though the city-based firm has not disclosed the investment made in the four tech hubs, its President Ravi Kumar said the investment at Hartford would strengthen its ability to serve clients' needs in the New England region and expand the local workforce to help its clients compete.

"Hartford's position as the world's insurance capital, paired with Connecticut's academic institutions will place us in proximity to clients and accelerate the recruitment of local talent," asserted Kumar in the statement.

The Connecticut hub will also include insurance and healthcare labs that focus on smart underwriting, claims fraud, IoT and cloud and will employ data security and data-sharing features to help the company's clients comply with privacy laws while promoting innovation.

"We will leverage the hub to train its employees and develop techniques with agile, development operations, cloud and information security projects," added the statement.

Expo 2020 Dubai Launches new Career portal

Expo 2020 Dubai

 The career portal will allow individuals to easily access the latest job opportunities available

 Expo 2020 Dubai has launched a new career portal to allow talented and ambitious individuals to join the ranks of its expanding team.The career portal will allow individuals to easily access the latest job opportunities available and is regularly updated with new positions, ranging from entry to director level.

The Expo 2020 team currently comprises 850 employees, 454 of whom are directly employed by Expo 2020. The rest include external consultants engaged by Expo 2020 to deliver the large-scale event, which will be the first World Expo to take place in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia, MEASA, region.

Rita Penteado, Director of Human Resources, Workforce and Volunteers at Expo 2020, said, "We are looking for ambitious people who want to create a global impact and work in a fast-paced environment where expectations are high. We need people who are flexible and adaptable, who like to be challenged, and who share our core values of integrity, cooperation, respect, humility and excellence.

"Even if the positions currently available on the Expo 2020 career portal do not suit applicants' skill sets, they can still register and upload their resumes. Expo 2020's requirements are continuously evolving and growing so, in the future, we will no doubt need capabilities that we don't yet know about."Those who join the ranks of Expo 2020 will enter into a dynamic, multicultural environment, with employees of 57 nationalities collaborating to deliver an exceptional Expo with a long-lasting legacy.

Alya Al Ali, Director, Youth Connect at Expo 2020, said, "Expo 2020 Dubai offered me the unique opportunity to join straight from the university at only 21 years of age. I became a director at 24 and I am now responsible for running the department that ensures young people play a central role in Expo 2020. Expo truly empowers youth and enables people from around the world to progress in ways they might not imagine are possible at their age.

Artificial Intelligence will Create more Jobs in 2020 Globally

Artificial intelligence will create more jobs globally rather than eliminating jobs in 2020, with white-collar service workers in certain companies taking the biggest hit, an industry expert said.

Peter Sondergaard, executive vice-president and global head of research at Gartner, on the sidelines of the Gartner Symposium/IT Expo 2018, that firms such as legal, insurance and banking are likely to be impacted. Gartner, Inc. is an American research and advisory firm providing information technology-related insight for IT and other business leaders located across the world. Its headquarters are in Stamford, Connecticut, United States.

He said AI will create 2.3 million jobs in 2020, while only eliminating 1.8 million jobs.“When we move beyond the horizon, we will see more of blue-collar jobs getting eliminated such as transportation and trucking jobs due to autonomous vehicles. The jobs that are going to be created is to train the AI systems by inputting data and data scientists.”

According to Sondergaard, there is risk involved with AI and the first risk is the elimination of jobs; the second one is biases of software code, and the third risk is the bias of the data. Software code is developed by the mindset of the people of the developers.

“If they are young people, they will be biased. Feeding bad data it will give bad data out.”

After 2020, he said that young people are likely going to a job category that does not exist today, using skills we don’t know we need and trying to do something in a business that does not exist today.

“AI is here to help us and create new opportunities and capabilities. A person plus a machine is smarter either by themselves. AI will continue to learn and improve human decisions with lots of data. Data is the new fuel,” Sondergaard said.

He said most people are still in the dark about how to approach AI.“AI is hyped and we don’t know yet what AI will do and the full impact it will have on society and individual businesses. A major part of AI will be relatively simple but bot-based implementations over the next couple of years but there is a lot of scopes for companies to exploit AI,” Sondergaard said.

He added that AI will not probably take off in a big way until 2030. What AI is affecting today is the user experience, processes and analytics in banks, insurance companies and cybersecurity companies. There is a shortage of talent for skilled workers such as data engineer or scientist, but he said the region is capable of importing talent.

“Organisations that are not creating new digital business models, or new ways to engage constituents or customers, will begin to lag. Vendors that do not move more quickly than their clients will be left behind.”

He said there are three barriers to digital transformation in existing companies: culture, resources and talent.

“Culture is one of the slowest things to change. It is hard to change the way people think, so you need to change what the people do instead. Once they do things differently, it shifts the way they think. This shows that digital transformation is the first and foremost a business transformation. People, not technology, is the most important piece in the digital transformation puzzle,” he said.