If you are lucky enough to have Wednesday off work for the public holiday, enjoy it - because it will be the last one for almost five months. The public holiday to mark the New Year will be the first of at least 14 days off in 2020, according to a calendar approved by the UAE Cabinet. Those holidays provide a welcome boost to many employees’ annual leave entitlement. However, because most public holidays will be in the second half of the year, public and private sector employees will have a long wait for the next one. After Wednesday, the next public holiday will be in May to celebrate Eid Al Fitr, at the end of the first April Ramadan in three decades. The holiday will last for either four or five days, depending on how long the holy month is. If Ramadan is 30 days long, the holiday will be five days, from about Saturday, May 23, to Wednesday, May 27, giving most people a six-day weekend. But if the month is 29 days long, the holiday could end on Tuesday, May 26. The remaining public holidays in 2020 will fall in the last six months of the year, with days off to mark Arafat Day, Eid Al Adha, Islamic New Year, the Prophet Mohammed's birthday, Commemoration Day and National Day. Arafat Day, which is expected to be on Thursday, July 30, will be marked by one day off and will be immediately followed by a three-day break for Eid Al Adha, which is estimated to begin on July 31 and last until Sunday, August 2. After that, UAE public and private sector employees can expect a long weekend with Sunday, August 23, likely to be a public holiday to celebrate Islamic New Year, with another day off to come on Thursday, October 29, to mark the Prophet Mohammed's birthday. There will also be a three-day break in December, starting with a public holiday to mark Commemoration Day on Tuesday, December 1, followed by days off on December 2 and December 3 to celebrate National Day. This year, the UAE Cabinet issued a stipulation that the public and private sectors would have the same number of holiday days. Previously, people employed in the public sector had more days off than those working for private companies. The move was part of long-standing <a href="https://www.thenational.ae/uae/government/sheikh-abdullah-tells-uae-youth-to-think-beyond-comfortable-jobs-1.41511">efforts to encourage Emiratis to move away from government jobs</a>, where the vast majority of UAE nationals work.