Kuwait- Women on maternity leave is also allowed to take annual leave

(MENAFN- Arab Times) Our employee who just joined us in the first week of February 2017 this year is now on maternity leave (from July 2, 2017). We know that she is entitled to 70 days maternity leave according to Kuwait Labor law.

However, we are not sure to give the full remuneration because she has not completed even 1 year with us. We are not even sure if she will come back after taking her leave. Is she entitled to an annual leave as well? We wanted to have a fair treatment for both our company and her. She claims to have the right to both maternity and annual leaves. Your earliest reply will be highly appreciated.

Name withheld

Answer: A woman employee is entitled to 70 days maternity leave as you rightly said. Your difficulty is whether to pay her for all these 70 days. Well, the labour law talks of 70 days paid maternity leave so there is no leeway over this and the employee must be paid for all these 70 days regardless of how many days, months or years she has spent under your employment.

As for the annual leave is a total different issue from maternity leave, she can only qualify for one if she returns from the maternity and satisfies the conditions precedent to applying for a annual leave.

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