UAE: Employers can pay salaries of domestic helpers through wage protection system from today

Starting January 27, 2022, families will have the option of using the online Wage Protection System (WPS) to pay the salaries of domestic helpers.

The WPS enables employers and families to pay salaries online through bank transfers, exchange offices, and financial institutions authorized by the UAE Central Bank.

Khalil Khoury, Assistant Undersecretary for Domestic Worker Affairs at the Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratization, said the optional implementation of WPS for domestic workers aims to safeguard the rights of both the workers and their employers.

“It helps employers prove that they have paid the salary on time, while ensuring domestic helpers are receiving their salaries every month. In this way, the system helps create a stable and healthy work relationship between domestic helpers and their employers,” said Khoury.

The system, he added, applies to all the domestic help professions stated in the law including housemaids, nannies, housekeepers, cooks, family drivers, security guards, gardeners, farmers, private coaches, private teachers, private nurses, private representatives, private agriculture engineers, sailors, shepherds, falcon care-taker and workers.

Khoury stressed that the WPS provides an easier, faster and digitally advanced channel to pay salaries on time.

Employers can also use smart apps provided by any of the financial institutions that they deal with to pay the salaries of domestic helpers.

Implemented since 2009, the WPS is an electronic mechanism that ensures timely payment of workers’ wages in the private sector.

Khoury said the implementation of the WPS in processing the salaries domestic helpers will be of success particularly after the long experience that the ministry has garnered in developing and using the system for the past 13 years.

“The WPS has been maintaining positive, stable and transparent work relationships in the private sector,” noted Khoury.

This initiative is the ministry’s latest efforts to safeguard the rights of domestic helpers. Since 2017, the ministry had stopped renewing licenses of private domestic workers' recruitment offices, replacing them with Tadbeer centres, one-stop-shops to streamline recruitment and protect rights. In 2017, the UAE issued Federal Law no. 10 of 2017 to govern the employment of domestic workers across the country.