Employment services offered by the Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation (Mohre) will either be automated or made a lot easier as the authority heeds the call for 'zero bureaucracy'. Several requirements and procedures will be completely eliminated, with transaction processing time slashed to maximum one business day.

Work permit renewals are among those that have been automated, Mohre said. The process previously required in-person visits but now, it can be done through the ministry's smart application, with no documents required. What used to take two days is now automatically completed.

This was made possible through Mohre system's integration with the Federal Authority for Identity, Citizenship, Customs, and Port Security (ICP). This means several other related services are done instantly.

No procedures and documents are also required when cancelling work permits for employees outside the country, deceased individuals, those with contagious diseases, and unused work permits, Mohre said.

Settling violators’ status when renewing work permits with their current employer has also been automated, with 50 per cent fewer procedures and required documents.

The ministry also worked with other government entities and tapped into their systems to further streamline its services.

"Building on data from various other agencies’ systems, the ministry has developed all of its core services, reducing the number of fields required through integration with relevant entities, and cutting down on required documents by up to 76 per cent," said Khalil Ibrahim Al Khoori, undersecretary of labour market and Emiratisation operations at Mohre.

"Service completion was made automatic and immediate using AI technologies, reducing transaction processing time to a maximum of one business day," Al Khoori said.

The ministry's core services include issuing work permits for establishments and domestic workers, renewing employment contracts, cancelling work permits or contracts, and processing labour complaints.

New services

The developments have also allowed Mohre to offer new smart services.

Employees may now request job experience certificates and get them in under two minutes.

An electronic authorisation service is also available free of charge and can be completed in two minutes instead of three days. No documents and in-person visits are required and the procedures were cut by 80 per cent.

New AI platform, inspection system

All these instant services were made available as the ministry took steps to migrate all of its systems to the Federal Network (FEDnet) cloud network infrastructure at the Telecommunications and Digital Government Regulatory Authority, Al Khoori said.

Mohre also launched an artificial intelligence (AI) platform as part of its plan to enhance organisational efficiency.

This automates primary and secondary pursuits for establishments with multiple activities, reducing process completion time to just three hours — compared to the three months a single employee previously needed for the task. The platform also uses AI to determine the proposed primary activity for a client when opening an establishment card.