Labor rules

Erlangly checks every schedule against the labor law where each person works: as it generates a draft, when you change a shift, when people swap, and before anything is published. The rules come from signed rule packs, for the United States (federal law and 32 states), Canada (federal law and all ten provinces), India (the Labour Codes, seven states and Delhi), Barbados, Belize, Guyana, Jamaica, Kenya, Panama, the Philippines, South Africa, and Trinidad and Tobago.

The packs help you follow the law, but they aren't legal advice: whether a schedule is lawful is for you and your advisers (license agreement, section 4). Where this page says a rule isn't checked, look at it yourself.

Whose rules apply

Choose the labor law your organization follows under Settings → Organization, as its Labor rules. A site whose people work under a different law has its own, on the site's page, and so can a person, on theirs. A person follows their own labor rules if they have them, otherwise their site's, otherwise the organization's. A site's Country is for your reference and chooses none: Settings → Sites marks a site whose people follow another country's labor rules. Settings → Labor rules lists the rules in force for each jurisdiction you use, and its holidays.

An organization starts on its country's labor rules. In Canada, that's federal law, which is for federally regulated employers such as banks, telecoms and airlines: most contact centers should choose their province. In the US, it's federal law alone: choose your state if Erlangly has rules for it. Until you choose others, the Schedule page's Before your first schedule list asks you to. Erlangly has no labor rules for the Bahamas, Colombia, the Dominican Republic or Mexico yet: an organization there starts with none, so nothing is checked, and drafts and publishing say so.

How the checks work

Each rule is set as a violation or a warning; a critical one, such as Canada's federal 48-hour week, blocks as a violation does. A violation must be fixed: it stops the change, or the publishing, until it is. A warning can go ahead once you've seen it and confirmed it: see When the schedule changes. Settings → Labor rules shows which each rule is.

Each person is checked on their own clock, as the law where they work counts it: their days, their nights and their rest. Weekly limits use your organization's week, on each person's clock, and a night shift counts whole in the day and the week it starts. What a check finds reads on the schedule's clock, as the grid shows their shifts, so someone in Manila on a schedule in Toronto time has their issues dated and timed in Toronto time. The night hours a law sets stay as it sets them, and say whose clock they're on: A night shift (more than 3 h between 18:00 and 06:00 Panama time).

The checks count the time people work. Approved overtime counts with the shift it's next to, so that day's hours, and the rest after it, run to the end of the overtime; overtime on a day off is a day's work of its own. Approved time off isn't work: a shift it covers wholly is left out of the checks, so a day's vacation breaks a run of days in a row, and the part of a shift it covers is unpaid time, like an unpaid break, though not a break a rule asks for.

When a draft is generated

Generation treats these as hard limits. The week before the period counts, so rest and days in a row carry on across it. A draft made once there's a schedule follows on from the schedule's days before the start of next week, which stay when it takes over from then.

The Labor rules section of a draft lists what the latest check found, a row for each rule broken: violations first, then warnings, the rule found most often first. A row says:

• how many shifts and people it's found on, and when;
• what the rule is set to, and where its law is written;
• when most of its shifts come from one or two shift patterns, which ones, so you can change the pattern rather than the shifts.

Open a row for each person's days, and choose a day to go to that shift. A week's hours aren't on one shift, so they show on the last day worked that week, and days in a row on each day past the limit, with no shift to open.

The section follows the schedule's view, its week or day, line of business, team and who you've found, and says how many issues are out of view, with Show the whole schedule's for all of them. Violations out of view always say so, since publishing goes by the whole schedule. It follows your edits, and Check again checks the whole draft.

A contract's own limits, its max a day and days off in a row, are kept to as well: see Contracts, availability and time off.

When the schedule changes

Overtime still to come, recorded under Exceptions, is checked as it's recorded, approved or changed: a violation refuses it, and says why, and a warning asks for Approve anyway, which puts your name and the warnings in the audit trail. Overtime already worked is never refused, and the checks after it count it.

A change is checked for what it adds, for everyone whose shifts it changes: an issue someone didn't have, or one it makes worse, like less rest or more hours. That reaches into the schedules either side, other clients' too: a Sunday shift that leaves too little rest before next week's Monday, or makes too many days in a row with next week's, is checked when you make it, and once it's made both weeks' Labor rules list the issue.

A supervisor scheduling coaching or a meeting where there's overage is offered times by coverage alone, and none of them breaks a rule: the activity is paid work on the shift, and shift times, breaks and lunches stay as they are, so nothing a rule counts changes. It's checked when they choose Schedule it all the same, and anything it would break, a warning too, stops it, with no anyway. See Activities supervisors schedule. Swaps are checked for both people: see Shift swaps.

Changing a rule

Settings → Labor rules lists the rules in force for each jurisdiction: you can tighten any rule, and an admin can loosen one with a reason. Each number must be one the checks can use; to stop a rule applying, an admin turns it off with a reason. A change counts from the next check. Schedules aren't checked again by themselves: choose Check again on a draft or the schedule to see what it finds now.

Each jurisdiction there says how current its rules are, like Rules as of September 28, 2026: the day its rule pack was signed. Every rule pack is checked against its official sources each quarter, and any change we find ships in the next release.

A rule you've changed keeps only what you changed, and the rest follows the pack: the numbers you didn't change, and whether the rule is a violation or a warning, unless you changed that too. When an update changes something you changed, and what you set is now looser than the pack, it takes the pack's; the rest stays as you set it. A rule you turned off stays off, and a change that doesn't fit the rule any more, because the pack counts it another way, is taken out. A rule the pack no longer has stays, as you changed it, until an admin dismisses it. Each time, Settings → Labor rules says under the rule what the pack changed, until an admin dismisses it, and the audit trail has it.

Holidays

Settings → Labor rules lists each jurisdiction's holidays for the year, from its rule pack; the arrows show other years. Holidays are worked out for this year and the next two, and move on a year each January by themselves. Holidays proclaimed for a single year, such as the Philippines' each September and its Eid days, come in an update after they're proclaimed; until it comes, a year shows the holidays that recur.

Add a holiday for one the pack doesn't have, such as a city's holiday or a company day off. It's marked Added here, and you can delete it; the pack's own holidays can't be changed. Installing a newer rule pack keeps yours. If the pack brings the same holiday, on the same day and by the same name, it's listed once and stays yours to delete; on another day or by another name, both are listed, so delete yours. Some holidays are announced only days or weeks before the day, such as Trinidad and Tobago's Eid-ul-Fitr and Divali, Guyana's Phagwah, Eid-ul-Adha, Youman Nabi and Deepavali, and Kenya's Idd-ul-Fitr and Eid-ul-Adha: add each once it's announced, until an update brings it.

Forecasts leave out the holidays of the labor law your organization follows (Settings → Organization), the pack's and yours alike, from their next calculation, and suggest marking those in their own dates: see Holidays and special days.

Every jurisdiction's rules, and their sources

Settings → Labor rules shows the jurisdictions in use: your organization's, your sites' and your people's. Choose All there for every jurisdiction the rule packs have, by country, and open one to read its rules and holidays, before you choose it for a site, say. Only those in use can be changed.

A rule's citation, under its name, says where its law is written. Where the rule pack names the official text, the citation links to it, and so does a holiday's name. The link opens in a new tab.

How some rules are counted

Some packs have rules that count hours in their own way. The countries below say which they use.

Day, mixed and night shifts

Where the law sets shorter hours for work at night, each day's work is a day, mixed or night shift by how much of it falls in the night, for example 18:00 to 06:00. Two shifts on one day count together.

• More than 3 hours of night makes a night shift, with 7 ordinary hours a day and 42 a week, and so does a day's work that's all at night, however short.
• Any other night up to 3 hours makes a mixed shift, with 7.5 and 45.
• None makes a day shift, with 8 and 48.

A shift's night includes any breaks in it, and a shift past midnight counts the night on both sides. Hours past a shift's ordinary hours are overtime, and the check names the kind of shift: A night shift (more than 3 h between 18:00 and 06:00): 8 h worked, 1 h past the ordinary 7 h.

A week with different kinds of shift goes by the lowest weekly hours among them, so one night shift makes it 42. That's the cautious reading of the law.

Caps on overtime

Where the law limits overtime, say to 3 hours a day and 9 a week, a day's overtime is its hours past the shift's ordinary hours. A week's is its days' overtime, plus any of its other hours past the ordinary week. A cap set to block publishing is a hard limit for generation too. It counts overtime past the overtime threshold, or the day, mixed and night shifts' hours, so while it blocks publishing those can be changed but not turned off: set the cap to warn, or turn it off, first.

Meals by hours of work

Where the law asks for a meal without saying when, as in the Philippines, the check asks for one for every so many hours of work: there, 60 minutes for every 7, paid or not. A 9-hour shift with an hour's unpaid lunch has it; an 8-hour shift with a 30-minute unpaid one doesn't.

A compressed workweek

Where the law lets people work longer days in a shorter week, it can have rules of its own. In the Philippines, a compressed workweek has overtime after 12 hours a day or 48 a week, instead of after 8 hours a day. It only counts where most of the people it covers agreed to it and DOLE's regional office was told; otherwise their hours past 8 a day are overtime as usual.

Its rules never apply by themselves: choose Compressed workweek, under the Philippines, as the labor rules of the sites or people who work one, and Settings → Labor rules lists it from then on.

• If their days are shorter, say five of 9.6 hours, you can tighten its daily overtime threshold to their day there, to be warned of any hours past it.
• If their normal week is 5 days (40 hours), tighten the weekly overtime threshold to 40 too.

At a glance

What each country's labor rules check, in short. The hours are where overtime starts, and a rule warns unless it says blocks: see How the checks work. A dash means it isn't checked; generation still keeps its own 8 hours' rest and 6 days in a row.

Barbados

No law sets the hours of office work in general, so Barbados's labor rules have the public holidays and nothing else. A retailer's or wholesaler's own contact center, or one that takes orders for goods, may be under the Shops Act: choose Shops Act, under Barbados, as the labor rules of its sites or people. There:

Overtime and a sixth day warn, as the person can agree to them (s.6(3), (6)), paid at time and a half or double (s.6(4)). The rest and the meal warn too until a lawyer confirms whether they can ever be agreed away. Generation keeps to the rest and the 5 days.

Holidays: When Emancipation Day, August 1, is a Sunday or a Monday, the Tuesday after is the holiday, as Kadooment Day has the first Monday in August. Christmas on a Sunday stays a holiday, with the Monday and Tuesday after; another holiday on a Sunday is taken on the Monday, and one on a Saturday stays.

Good to know

• Look at these yourself:
  • 5 days in any 7, which 4 days on, 1 off and 4 on goes past;
  • 40 hours in any 7 days in a row, which the check counts by your organization's week;
  • the Chief Labour Officer's certificate for shop staff working between 23:00 and 07:00;
  • and opening: a Shops Act center may open from Monday 07:00 to Sunday 22:00 except on Good Friday, Easter Sunday, Independence Day and Christmas Day unless licensed (Shops Act s.4), and on other public holidays where the shops law allows (Public Holidays Act s.7); any other contact center may open on a public holiday only if the Public Holidays Act exempts it.
• Nothing checks the Workstation Regulations 2022's 5-minute break after each hour at a screen, for anyone at one more than 6 hours a day or 30 a week: the rule would warn on nearly every shift, and can't yet come turned off for you to turn on, so plan those breaks, or time away from the screen, yourself.

Belize

Holidays: National Heroes and Benefactors Day and Indigenous Peoples' Resistance Day are on the nearest Monday, and other holidays on a Sunday are taken on the Monday after, but for Christmas: on a Sunday it stays, with Boxing Day on the Monday. When the Minister moves a holiday by notice, as Labour Day 2024 went to Monday, April 29, add the new day with Add a holiday; the old one stays listed until an update.

Good to know

• The law asks for 9 hours' rest at night (by day for night workers), and the check looks between any two shifts, so a split day (08:00–12:00 and 16:00–20:00), or two clients' shifts on one day, blocks too. Where you work split days, an admin can make the rule warn instead of block, with that as the reason: split days then warn, a short night's rest still warns, and generation still keeps the 9 hours. Don't lower its hours, which would let a short night's rest through for everyone under Belize's rules. Or keep a split day as one shift with a long unpaid break.
• Generation doesn't place meals by the law, so set the lunch window in your shift patterns to keep every stretch of work to 6 hours: a 9-hour shift with an hour's lunch needs it to start between 2 and 6 hours in. Evening out breaks doesn't move a lunch to where it would break the rule: that lunch stays where it was.
• Where the Labour Commissioner has approved another arrangement for continuous shifts, an admin can loosen the rule, with the approval as the reason.
• A run of up to 12 days across two weeks can still have a rest day in each, though a seventh day in a row warns.
• Some of the law isn't checked, so look at these yourself:
  • shift workers whose hours average 9 a day and 45 a week over 3 weeks or less, who are owed no overtime, so its warnings don't apply to them;
  • supervisors, managers and confidential staff, whom the overtime and days-a-week rules don't cover (the rest and the break do);
  • and work on a public holiday or a rest day, which needs the person's agreement.

Canada

Federal law, for federally regulated employers such as banks, telecoms and airlines, and all ten provinces. There's no pack for the territories. Each checks:

Holidays: Each province's own list. In Ontario, British Columbia, Quebec, Alberta and Prince Edward Island, New Year's Day and Christmas on a Saturday or Sunday are listed on their date and again on the weekday after, the day most organizations give off in lieu, so forecasts leave both out. In Ontario, Boxing Day is listed the same way, and the weekdays after Christmas and Boxing Day are named Christmas Day (day off in lieu) and Boxing Day (day off in lieu). Prince Edward Island lists a Sunday Canada Day on the Monday too. The other provinces list New Year's Day and Christmas on their dates only.

The law keeps the holiday on its date. Where it falls on someone's day off, most provinces give them another day off or a day's pay, person by person; Alberta gives neither. The federal list has the working day after a weekend New Year's Day, Canada Day, Truth and Reconciliation Day, Remembrance Day, Christmas or Boxing Day (Canada Labour Code s.193(2)). Newfoundland and Labrador's holidays but Remembrance Day fall on the days proclaimed each year: add one with Add a holiday if its day differs (see Holidays). In Manitoba, Remembrance Day isn't a general holiday, but its own Act closes most businesses that day.

Good to know

• Reporting pay: where the law pays a minimum for a shift someone reports for, a shorter shift warns: 3 hours, or 2 in British Columbia. In Alberta, New Brunswick and Newfoundland and Labrador the minimum is paid at the minimum wage, so a better-paid agent's short shift may cost nothing extra. In Ontario and Quebec it's owed when a usual, longer shift is cut short, not for shifts that are always short. In New Brunswick it's owed only to people paid under twice the minimum wage who usually work longer. Federal and Nova Scotia law pay it only to someone called in outside their schedule, and Manitoba's to someone sent home early: a shift scheduled under 3 hours is paid as scheduled. Confirm the others with Save anyway.
• Generation keeps its own 8 hours' rest everywhere, and 6 days in a row unless the province's rule allows more (7 in Ontario).
• Nova Scotia's further 30 minutes past 10 hours of work in a row may come in pieces, which the check warns on.
• A week with long days warns for daily and weekly overtime both, though only the greater is owed (federal law, British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan). In New Brunswick and Newfoundland and Labrador overtime is time and a half of the minimum wage, so above it the warning may cost nothing.
• Some of the law isn't checked, so look at these yourself:
  • in a week with a holiday, federal and Saskatchewan overtime starts 8 hours sooner for each holiday, and Quebec and Manitoba count the holiday as hours worked, while the check still counts 40;
  • federal law's "day" is any 24 hours in a row, so a late shift and an early one the next day that add up past 8 hours aren't warned about;
  • schedule notice: federal law's 96 hours, and 24 for a changed shift; Quebec's 5 days; Saskatchewan's and Prince Edward Island's week;
  • federal modified schedules that average past 48 hours: an admin can loosen the 48-hour rule, with the schedule as the reason;
  • Alberta's two 15-minute breaks in place of 30 minutes, by agreement;
  • Alberta's second break on a shift of 10 hours with an unpaid half hour in it, which the check counts as 9.5 hours of work, and its first break, due within or right after the first 5 hours, which the check doesn't place;
  • Alberta's 12-hour spread, the longest a working day can stretch;
  • British Columbia's and Prince Edward Island's split shifts, finished within 12 hours of starting;
  • Saskatchewan's 4-day, 10-hour schedules, whose daily overtime starts at 10 hours, so the check over-warns; its 44 hours a week without consent; and its day off, owed only to those who usually work 20 hours a week or more;
  • Prince Edward Island's averaging agreements;
  • Newfoundland and Labrador's hour split up, by written contract, and its limits on work on a public holiday;
  • Ontario's two eating periods that together make 30 minutes, by agreement;
  • Ontario's hours averaged over 2 to 4 weeks for overtime, by agreement: the check counts each week on its own, so an averaged week past 44 hours still warns;
  • Ontario's limits on hours of work, 8 a day (or a longer regular day the employer sets) and 48 a week, which the employee can agree to go past;
  • Ontario's 11 hours in a row off each day, which no agreement changes;
  • Ontario's written agreements to less than 8 hours between shifts: where people have them, an admin can loosen the rule to warn instead, for everyone in Ontario (Changing a rule);
  • and a holiday on someone's day off: most provinces give them another day off or a day's pay, person by person (Alberta neither), and the list can't show whose.

Guyana

The National Minimum Wage Order, which names call centers, sets a normal week of 40 hours on at most 5 days.

The law sets no daily overtime, rest between shifts, break or days in a row for call centers, so none is checked; generation keeps its own 8 hours' rest and 6 days in a row.

Holidays: Phagwah, Eid-ul-Adha, Youman Nabi and Deepavali are dated by notice each year: 2026's are in the rule pack, with Deepavali, on Sunday, November 8, taken on Monday, November 9, as the Minister of Home Affairs declared it. A holiday on a Sunday is taken on the Monday after; one on a Saturday stays. Every Sunday is a public holiday by law too, which forecasts already treat as a Sunday.

Good to know

• Look at these yourself:
  • a sixth day of work in a week, whose hours may be overtime even under 40;
  • and the overtime rates for hours past the 40-hour, 5-day week: at least double on Sundays, Christmas, Phagwah, Eid-ul-Adha, Good Friday, Easter Monday and Labour Day, and time and a half otherwise (the Factories Act's rates, which the Order borrows); whether Sunday or holiday work within the 40 hours earns more is for your contract.

India

The Labour Codes have been in force since November 21, 2025, but until a state's own rules under the Codes are final, its Shops and Establishments Act is taken to still set a contact center's hours, and that's what the state's labor rules check. Uttar Pradesh's rules under the Codes became final on August 27, 2026, so its labor rules check the Codes and those rules.

India (Labour Codes), the default, follows the Codes as they may apply to a bank's, insurer's or telecom operator's own center. Give a site, or a person, their state's labor rules: Delhi, Haryana, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh or West Bengal. In Telangana, IT and ITES establishments under the state's exemption (to May 29, 2028) have Telangana, IT/ITES. Elsewhere, Erlangly applies the Labour Codes' central rules, India (Labour Codes). Your state's Shops and Establishments Act may set other hours and intervals: check it, and change the rules there.

Everywhere, a seventh day in a row warns too. Every India rule warns rather than blocks for now, while some of the law is confirmed. Lunches and breaks count toward the rest interval, but only a single break as long as the interval: where the law wants an hour, a 30-minute lunch with two 15-minute breaks warns.

Holidays: Republic Day, Independence Day and Gandhi Jayanti everywhere, with each state's own fixed days: May Day (Maharashtra Day in Maharashtra) in Karnataka, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Telangana and West Bengal, Kannada Rajyotsava in Karnataka, Telangana Formation Day, Dr Ambedkar Jayanti in Uttar Pradesh, and Netaji's birthday in West Bengal. Telangana's festival days are Hyderabad's, as notified for 2026, and Uttar Pradesh's 2026 festival days are in the pack too; later years' wait for their notifications, so add them with Add a holiday until an update brings them (see Holidays). The festival holidays chosen locally (five in Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Haryana, four in Maharashtra) are yours to add.

Good to know

• Some of the law isn't checked, so look at these yourself:
  • the spread-over, the longest a working day can stretch with its breaks (10 to 12 hours, by state);
  • the quarterly or yearly caps on overtime, and the worker's consent to it;
  • in Telangana (outside IT/ITES), Delhi and Uttar Pradesh, the law closes establishments on its holidays unless they're exempted; shifts on those days aren't checked;
  • women's night work: prohibited in Telangana (outside IT/ITES), Delhi and West Bengal unless exempted, and elsewhere allowed with consent and conditions such as transport and security;
  • West Bengal's day and a half: besides a whole day off each week, the day before or after it must leave 5½ hours in a row free between 08:00 and 20:00;
  • West Bengal's week runs from midnight on Tuesday; its 48 hours are checked on your organization's week;
  • Uttar Pradesh's 24 hours off when someone changes shifts;
  • and compensatory days off for work on a holiday or a weekly day off.
• In Karnataka, a center that isn't IT or ITES and opens 24x7 under the State's permission (September 27, 2024, for three years) is held to 8 hours a day: tighten the daily overtime threshold to 8.
• Delhi's 2026 amendment (a 10-hour day, 60 hours a week with overtime) isn't in force yet: an update brings it when it applies.

Jamaica

No law limits the hours of a day or sets rest between shifts: since 2014 a day of up to 12 hours is paid at the single rate. Generation keeps its own 8 hours' rest.

Holidays: The holidays are Jamaica's public holidays, Ash Wednesday and National Heroes Day, the third Monday in October, among them. A holiday on a Sunday is taken on the Monday after, and Labour Day, May 23, on a Saturday too; when Christmas is a Sunday, Boxing Day is taken on the Tuesday.

Good to know

• A Sunday Boxing Day moves only by the Minister's order, as it did in 2010 and 2021, so 2027's Monday, December 27, is listed by that practice.
• The Holidays Act closes banks, insurers, building societies and licensed merchants and retailers on public holidays, which may reach their own contact centers.
• The rest day isn't owed to people who normally work under 40 hours a week for you (the minimum wage law's hourly workers), though their seventh day in a row warns too.
• A center taking orders for a shop's goods may be under the Shops Regulations' meal times.

For BPOs there, see Workforce management for Jamaica's BPOs.

Kenya

The Regulation of Wages (General) Order sets the hours for every employee outside agriculture, contact centers included, and the Employment Act gives a weekly rest day. Kenyan law sets no daily limit, no rest between shifts and no meal break. Give the people employed on night work Night work, on their site's or their own page: the Order gives them a longer week.

Every Kenya rule warns rather than blocks. Overtime is counted by the week, not the day, so a 12-hour day isn't overtime on its own. Generation keeps its own 8 hours' rest and 6 days in a row.

Holidays: The Public Holidays Act's days, with Mazingira Day on October 10. A holiday on a Sunday is taken on the next day that isn't a holiday, so Christmas on a Sunday gives the Monday and Tuesday; one on a Saturday stays. Idd-ul-Fitr's day is declared by Gazette notice a day or two ahead. Eid-ul-Adha is a holiday for Muslims by law, and it was declared for everyone in 2025 and 2026. 2026's are in the rule pack, and later years' come in an update, so add them with Add a holiday if the notice comes first, as you would any other day the government declares (see Holidays).

Polling day in the general election, Tuesday, August 10, 2027, is in the list, as the law makes it a holiday and 2022's was declared; the day the President-elect is sworn in is one too: add it with Add a holiday once it's known. Diwali, a holiday for Hindus only, isn't listed.

Good to know

• Some of the law isn't checked, so look at these yourself:
  • the 116 hours over two weeks: a lawful 60 and 56 warns in the first week, and two weeks of 58 are fine;
  • a rest day put off by agreement, which the law allows, and saved up to 14 days;
  • overtime pay at time and a half, and double on the rest day and public holidays;
  • and a nursing employee's paid breaks, up to an hour for every 8 hours.
• The law doesn't say who is employed on night work, so who has Night work is yours to decide.

Panama

Each day's work is a day, mixed or night shift, by how much of it falls between 18:00 and 06:00, with its own ordinary hours: 8, 7.5 or 7 a day, and 48, 45 or 42 a week.

Holidays: The holidays are Panama's national ones; one on a Sunday stays a holiday, and the Monday after is a day off too. 8 July is a holiday in the district of Changuinola only: add it for a site there.

Good to know

• Each shift needs a break of 30 minutes to 2 hours, however short (art. 39(1)): the check asks for one of at least 30 minutes once work passes 5 hours, which is Erlangly's timing, not the law's, and doesn't check the 2 hours. On night and mixed shifts the break may be split by agreement, which warns.
• A meal the person must take on site counts as work (art. 34(3)): record it as paid.
• A shift's night includes its unpaid breaks, so a long day can be classed night when only 3 hours of night are worked.
• Some of the law isn't checked, so look at these yourself:
  • overtime needs the person's agreement (art. 35);
  • hours past a contract's own lower limit are overtime too (art. 33);
  • the compensatory rest day for work on the weekly rest day or a holiday (arts. 41, 49);
  • opening on Sundays and public holidays, which needs one of art. 42's exceptions, such as the Dirección General de Trabajo's authorization (without one, Sunday is the weekly rest day), and Ley 118 of 2013 closes private businesses on January 9;
  • and minors' limits.

The Philippines

The law sets no rest between shifts; generation keeps its own 8 hours. A compressed workweek has rules of its own: see A compressed workweek.

Holidays: The holidays are the nationwide ones: add regional and local special days, such as Metro Manila's November 16 to 18, 2026, with Add a holiday under Settings → Labor rules (see Holidays).

Good to know

• Mark an hour-long lunch unpaid: a paid one counts as work toward the 8 hours.
• Where people doing non-manual work, or a site open 16 hours a day or more, get a paid meal of at least 20 minutes, an admin can loosen the meal rule to 20 minutes for everyone under the Philippines' rules, with that as the reason; it then passes a short unpaid meal too.
• Some of the law isn't checked, so look at these yourself:
  • a meal shorter than 60 minutes, which must be paid, and the meal on shifts with less than 7 hours of work;
  • short breaks of 5 to 20 minutes, which must be paid (an unpaid one isn't counted as work, so it can hide overtime);
  • the weekly rest of 24 hours in a row, which a day off between a late finish and an early start can fall short of;
  • posting rest-day schedules a week before they start;
  • and night work between 22:00 and 06:00, with its 10% differential and its health checks and facilities.

South Africa

Holidays: A public holiday on a Sunday stays one, and the Monday after is a public holiday too. When Christmas is a Sunday, Tuesday, December 27 is a holiday too, as the President has declared it each time since 2011.

Good to know

• Rest is checked between any two shifts, so a split day (08:00–12:00 and 16:00–20:00), or two clients' shifts on one day, blocks as well. Where you work split days, an admin can make the rule warn instead of block, with that as the reason: split days then warn, a short rest between days still warns, and generation still keeps the 12 hours. Don't lower its hours, which would let short rests between days through for everyone under South Africa's rules.
• Where a written agreement shortens the meal break to 30 minutes, or a collective agreement allows more overtime, an admin can loosen the rule, with the agreement as the reason.
• Generation doesn't place meals by the law, so set the lunch window in your shift patterns to keep every stretch of work to 5 hours: a 10-hour shift with an hour's lunch needs it to start between 4 and 5 hours in.
• A written agreement that drops the meal on days under 6 hours can't be set yet, so those shifts still warn.
• Some of the law isn't checked, so look at these yourself:
  • the 36 hours themselves, which a day off between a late finish and an early start can fall short of;
  • the 8-hour day for someone working more than 5 days a week, whose 9th hours are overtime that the 10-hour cap doesn't count;
  • Sunday work by someone who doesn't usually work Sundays, which counts towards the 10 hours of overtime;
  • work on a public holiday, which needs the person's agreement;
  • night work's agreement, allowance and transport;
  • and people earning above the earnings threshold, whom most of these limits don't cover.

Trinidad and Tobago

The law on hours and breaks, the Minimum Wages Order, covers only people paid up to 1.5 times the minimum wage: TT$30.75 an hour since January 2024. So there are three sets of labor rules, each with the public holidays:

• Trinidad and Tobago, the default, for the people the Order covers;
• Shift work, for those of them on shift work;
• and Paid over 1.5 times the minimum wage, with no rules, for everyone else.

Choose the one that fits as the labor rules of each site or person.

Neither has rest between shifts or days in a row, as the law sets none; generation keeps its own 8 hours and 6 days.

Holidays: A holiday on a Sunday, or on the same day as another, moves to the next day that isn't a Sunday or a holiday; one on a Saturday stays. Carnival Monday and Tuesday aren't public holidays, though most offices close: add them if yours does.

Good to know

• The law counts the 4.5 hours from the shift's start and the check counts hours of work, so an unpaid break before the meal lets it come later than the law allows.
• Some of the law isn't checked, so look at these yourself:
  • who counts as a shift worker, which the law doesn't say;
  • the second break, 15 minutes within 3 hours of the meal (a paid 10 minutes on shift work);
  • the paid breaks on a day 2 hours or more past 8;
  • and work on a day off, a Sunday or a public holiday, which is overtime whatever the week's hours.

The United States

Federal law and 32 states: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, Washington and West Virginia. People elsewhere in the US get the federal rules. Puerto Rico, Guam and the US Virgin Islands have hours and meal laws of their own that aren't checked: look at them yourself. Work past 40 hours a week is overtime in all of them, and warns. Nineteen states add rules of their own:

Nebraska's meal law covers only assembly plants, workshops and mechanical establishments, and Vermont's asks for reasonable chances to eat and use the toilet, with nothing to count: both have the federal rules only.

Every US rule warns rather than blocks, and the packs have no rest between shifts, so generation keeps its own 8 hours, and its own 6 days in a row.

Holidays: The federal holidays, in every state. Federal law doesn't make a private employer give them off or pay more for them: they're listed as the days many people have off, which forecasts leave out of their history. They fall on the federal calendar's days: one on a Saturday on the Friday before, and one on a Sunday on the Monday after. Add any state holiday your center keeps with Add a holiday (see Holidays). If you added federal holidays to a state yourself before the pack had them, look over its list: one of yours with another name or date than the pack's is listed beside the pack's, so delete yours.

Good to know

• Some of the law isn't checked, so look at these yourself:
  • New York's meal windows by the time of day (11:00 to 14:00, 20 minutes more between 17:00 and 19:00 on a long day, 45 minutes midway on a shift starting between 13:00 and 06:00, which the Department of Labor accepts as 30);
  • a meal taken in Washington before the 2nd hour of work, or in Colorado nearer the start or end than an hour;
  • when in the shift a meal falls in Oregon (after the 2nd or 3rd hour of work, before the 5th or 6th), in Connecticut and Delaware (after the first 2 hours, before the last 2), in Kentucky (no sooner than 3 hours in) and in Tennessee (not in the first hour);
  • rests in the middle of each 4 hours, in California, Colorado, Nevada, Oregon and Washington;
  • West Virginia's 20 minutes in all: it may come in pieces, so any break of 10 minutes or more passes;
  • Illinois' 24 hours' rest, which is 24 hours in a row, not a calendar day, so a night worker can fall short, and Massachusetts' 24 hours off, which must take in 8:00 to 17:00;
  • Minnesota's rests under 20 minutes, which must be paid (an unpaid 15 passes); under federal law (29 CFR 785.18) breaks of 5 to 20 minutes are hours worked everywhere, so keep short breaks paid or they hide overtime;
  • Kentucky's seventh-day premium (KRS 337.050), New Hampshire's day off after Sunday work (RSA 275:32) and New York's day of rest for telesales (Labor Law §161);
  • Oregon's second meal, owed from 14 hours of work: the check asks for it only past 14;
  • and California's split-shift premium and pay for a second report in a day.
• Colorado, New York, North Dakota and Rhode Island count a shift's length, and the check counts the work in it. So a shift there whose unpaid break is shorter than the law's meal (a 6h20 shift in New York with a 20-minute unpaid lunch, or an 8-hour one in Rhode Island) isn't warned about: look for those yourself.
• Some checks warn where the law may not:
  • in California, on a shift of 6 hours of work or less without a meal, which the person may waive by mutual consent; on a second meal on a day of 12 hours or less whose first meal was taken; on hours past 8 a day under an alternative workweek the employees voted for (up to 10); on 7 days in a row across two workweeks; on a week of 30 hours or less, or with no day over 6 hours, which may be exempt; and on a seventh day someone chose to work after being told of their day of rest, though it's still overtime;
  • in Illinois, on 5 hours of work after an early meal on a shift under 12 hours, which the law allows, as its second 20 minutes is owed only after 12 hours; and on a seventh day for people working 20 hours a week or less, supervisors, or anyone under a union contract;
  • in Massachusetts, where it asks for a second meal on a shift with more than 12 hours of work, as the law asks for one a calendar day; on a shift across midnight, as the law counts each calendar day; and on a seventh day in a row, as its law names manufacturing, mechanical and mercantile establishments, though the Attorney General reads it as most employers;
  • in New Hampshire, on two short shifts on one day, as the 2 hours are for the day;
  • in Kentucky, where it asks for a second lunch on a shift with 5 hours of work after lunch, and takes a lunch to be 30 minutes, as the law sets no length;
  • in Nevada, where it asks for a second rest past 6 hours of work, as the law's "major fraction" does, though the Labor Commissioner's regulation asks for it from 7;
  • and in Connecticut, on an employer that gives 30 paid minutes of breaks in each 7.5 hours, such as two paid 15s, which the law exempts from the meal; and on 7 days in a row that span two calendar weeks, or that someone chose to work, as the law only stops anyone being made to work 7 days in one week.
• Nevada's daily overtime is only for people paid under 1.5 times the minimum wage ($18.00 an hour from July 1, 2026), and not on an agreed 4 days of 10 hours. The check can't see pay, so it warns for everyone: if everyone you schedule in Nevada earns more, an admin can turn the rule off under Settings → Labor rules. Nevada's day is the 24 hours from when someone starts work, and the check counts a calendar day, so a late shift and an early one the next morning that add up past 8 hours aren't warned about.
• Several states' meal laws give way to a written agreement or a union contract, or don't apply with few people on duty: Delaware with fewer than 5 on a shift (Connecticut too, once the Labor Commissioner exempts you), Rhode Island fewer than 3, Maine fewer than 3 with frequent paid breaks, North Dakota just 1. New Hampshire's doesn't apply where people can eat while working and are allowed to. Washington's and Nevada's meals (and Nevada's rests) can be waived by agreement, and Colorado's 10-minute rest taken as two 5s; Nevada's don't apply with one person on site or under a union contract; Kentucky's lunch gives way to a mutual agreement; New York accepts a one-person shift eating on the job by written consent. The check can't see these, so approve those warnings, or have an admin loosen or turn off the rule under Settings → Labor rules.
• Alaska's daily overtime doesn't apply to employers of fewer than 4, or to work under a flexible work hour plan the Department of Labor approved (up to 10 hours a day) or a union contract sets: an admin can loosen or turn off the rule.