Shift schedules and overtime

Shift Schedules and Overtime: 9/80, DuPont, Panama, Pitman, 2-2-3, 4-on-4-off

A 12-hour shift rotation averages 42 hours a week, not 40. Because the days are 12 hours long, individual workweeks routinely land at 48 or 60 hours — which is 8 or 20 overtime hours that week, paid at 1.5× under the federal rule. The 9/80 compressed schedule averages 40 and produces 4 overtime hours every other week. Overtime is decided one fixed 7-day workweek at a time; the rotation’s own cycle does not decide it. The tables below lay out each schedule day by day and show the overtime each week produces. The overtime calculator splits any of these weeks for you.

The short answer

The ranges above are the full spread a crew can see depending on where the employer’s fixed 7-day workweek starts. The average is the same no matter what; the weekly swing is what decides the overtime. For DuPont the extremes are real — every 28 days a crew gets a full 7-day week with no shifts, and another week stacks 72 hours.

The rule that decides it: a fixed 40-hour workweek

Every number in the tables comes from one federal rule. The U.S. Department of Labor’s Fact Sheet #23 describes the workweek as “a fixed and regularly recurring period of 168 hours — seven consecutive 24-hour periods” and states plainly that overtime is owed for hours worked “in excess of 40 in a workweek,” with the line “Averaging of hours over two or more weeks is not permitted.” So a 60-hour week pays 20 overtime hours even if the next week is only 24 — the two are never netted.

This is also why a 42-hour average still produces overtime. The 2 hours of excess are not spread evenly; they arrive as full 48- or 60-hour weeks. A schedule that averages 42 is, in practice, a schedule where roughly half the weeks clear 40 and owe the premium. The regular rate for the overtime is the employee’s agreed hourly rate (or, where two rates are mixed in one week, the weighted average — covered on the biweekly overtime page).

9/80 — compressed, 9-hour days

The 9/80 is not a 12-hour pattern. Over two weeks an employee works 80 hours in 9 days: four 9-hour days plus one 8-hour day in week 1 (44 hours), then four 9-hour days in week 2 (36 hours) with the second Friday off. The average is exactly 40, but week 1 crosses the line.

Key: many 9/80 employers set the workweek boundary mid-week so each 7-day block stays at 40 and no premium is owed. If the boundary is the calendar week, week 1’s four hours are overtime. The schedule is legal either way; only the premium changes.

4-on-4-off — 12-hour days

Four consecutive 12-hour shifts, then four days off, repeating on an 8-day cycle. That is 48 hours of work every 8 days, an average of 42 a week. In a fixed 7-day workweek the hours arrive as a long stretch of 48-hour weeks followed by a long stretch of 36-hour weeks — the 48-hour weeks owe 8 overtime hours each.

W = 12-hour shift  ·  O = off. Cycle length 8 days; 4 shifts × 12h = 48h per cycle; average 42h/week.

Pitman and 2-2-3 — 12-hour days

“Pitman” and “2-2-3” are the same pattern: two days on, two off, three on, two off, two on, three off, repeating on a 14-day cycle. Seven 12-hour shifts every 14 days is 84 hours a fortnight, an average of 42 a week. The blocks are short — never more than three in a row — which is why it is popular in nursing, fire and EMS.

W = 12-hour shift  ·  O = off. Cycle length 14 days; 7 shifts × 12h = 84h per cycle; average 42h/week. Every other weekend is off (a three-day weekend).

So a Pitman employee is paid for a 60-hour week (20 overtime hours) one week and a 24-hour week the next, forever. The 42-hour average hides a paycheque that swings by more than half.

Panama — the same 2-2-3, slowly rotating day and night

Panama uses the identical 2-2-3 work-and-off rhythm as Pitman. What makes it “Panama” is that a team works its 2-2-3 on day shifts for a block, then flips to night shifts for the next block, instead of staying on one shift. The hours are exactly the same as Pitman — 84 per 14 days, 42 a week, alternating 60- and 24-hour workweeks — so the overtime maths above applies unchanged. The only added cost is the sleep-cycle adjustment each time the shift label flips.

DuPont — 12-hour, 28-day rotation

The DuPont rotation is the most lopsided of the set. Four crews cover 24/7 on 12-hour shifts over 28 days, each crew working this sequence (D = day, N = night, O = off):

D = day shift  ·  N = night shift  ·  O = off. Cycle length 28 days; 14 shifts × 12h = 168h per cycle; average 42h/week. Seven day shifts and seven night shifts per cycle.

The 0-and-72 pair is not a misprint. Because the 28-day rotation does not line up with a 7-day week, whichever fixed workweek boundary the employer chooses will, once per cycle, fall entirely inside the seven-off block (a 0-hour week) and, a fortnight later, swallow a six-shift week (72 hours). The average is still 42. Where the boundary sits is an employer choice, and sliding it per pay period to dodge overtime is exactly what the “no averaging” rule forbids.

A worked money example (Pitman heavy week)

To make the swing concrete, take the 60-hour Pitman week at an illustrative $20.00 an hour. Overtime is 1.5×, so the premium rate is $30.00.

Two weeks of Pitman at this rate pay $1,880.00 for 84 hours. A flat 42-hour week every week would pay 84 × $20.00 = $1,680.00 with no premium — the difference, $200.00, is the overtime premium earned in the heavy week, paid because the federal rule tests each week on its own 40-hour line. The same arithmetic runs on the overtime calculator: enter the weekly total and the 40 / 1.5 settings and it splits regular from overtime.

Why these numbers are not on the competitor sites

The point of laying every schedule out is that the three sites this site is measured against do not. In the benchmarking read of the field:

• teambridge.com lists these patterns only as named generator tools — a 2-2-3 generator, a Panama generator, a DuPont generator — each a name and a link with zero explanation of what the week actually pays.
• redcort.com covers state overtime and meal-break law as reference indexes; it does not walk through a shift rotation’s weekly hours at all.
• timecardcalculator.net has no content layer — it is a calculator and a help page, with no article explaining any schedule.

So the day-by-day rotations and the per-week overtime tables above are the part none of them publish: the arithmetic that turns a rotation into a paycheque. Everything labelled “illustrative” (the $20.00 rate) is a chosen example; the hours, averages and overtime figures are derived from the rotation definitions shown, counted against the federal 40-hour workweek.

Checking your own stub against a shift schedule

1. Find the fixed workweek, not the pay period. The dates on the stub are the pay period; the overtime is tested against the employer’s fixed seven-day boundary, which may start on any day.
2. Count the hours in each workweek on its own. A 60 and a 24 do not average to 42 for overtime purposes; the 60 owes 20 overtime hours regardless of the 24.
3. Expect the swing. On a 12-hour rotation, roughly half your weeks will clear 40 and owe the 1.5× premium. A stub that never shows overtime on a 42-hour-average schedule is worth questioning.
4. Watch the night premium separately. A night shift often carries its own differential on top of overtime; that is a second line, not a substitute for the overtime premium.
5. Remember the state floor. States with a daily overtime rule (California) can owe premium on the shape of a single 12-hour day as well as the weekly total. The federal weekly test still applies underneath.

The sources behind the rules on this page

• The workweek is “a fixed and regularly recurring period of 168 hours — seven consecutive 24-hour periods”, overtime is owed for hours “in excess of 40 in a workweek”, and “Averaging of hours over two or more weeks is not permitted” — U.S. Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division, Fact Sheet #23. Official federal source.
• The rotation definitions used for the hour counts — the DuPont 28-day sequence and the Pitman / Panama 2-2-3 sequence — are the standard documented forms published by shift-scheduling references (rotaplanner.app for DuPont; clocktally.com for Pitman and Panama). The weekly-hour ranges on this page are computed from those sequences against a fixed 7-day workweek, not quoted from them.

Last updated: 13 October 2026. The overtime rule and quotation are from the U.S. Department of Labor Fact Sheet #23 at the link above. The rotation sequences are the standard documented forms of each schedule; the weekly-hour and overtime figures are arithmetic performed on those sequences against the federal 40-hour workweek, with the formula printed in each table and the worked example. Illustrative rates are labelled where they appear. This page explains how the rules are written, not how they apply to a particular employer or schedule.