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4 on 4 off vs Panama
Both are twelve-hour rotations averaging forty-two hours a week. They differ in how the time off arrives — in one big block, or spread evenly with your weekends protected.
4 on 4 off
Day shiftNight shift24-hour tourDay off
Panama
Day shiftNight shift24-hour tourDay off
| 4 on 4 off | vs | Panama |
|---|---|---|
| The cycle | ||
| 12 hours | Shift length | 12 hours |
| 8 or 16 days | Cycle length | 14 days |
| 42 hours | Average week | 42 hours |
| 4 | Most shifts in a row | 3 |
| 4 days | Longest break in the cycle | 3 days |
| What it does to your week | ||
| NoAn 8-day cycle walks through the week | Days off land on the same weekdays each cycle | Yes14 days lands on the same days |
| NoWeekends move through the pattern | Every other weekend off | Yes |
| Yes | A four-day break every cycle | No |
| No | Standing weekly commitments are possible | YesEvery other week |
| Fatigue | ||
| Yes | Four night shifts in a row | NoNever more than three |
| 4 days | Recovery time after a night block | 2 or 3 days |
Same hours, different shape
Both patterns land on forty-two hours a week. Four on four off gets there with four twelve-hour shifts every eight days; Panama gets there with seven shifts every fourteen. The arithmetic is the same and the week is completely different.
The eight-day cycle is the whole argument
Four on four off does not line up with a seven-day week. Your days off walk forward two days each cycle, so over a couple of months you will have worked every day of the week and had every day of the week off.
That is either the best thing about it or the worst. It is fair — nobody permanently loses Saturdays. It is also impossible to plan around. A Tuesday night class, a Thursday league, a standing family dinner: none of them survive an eight-day cycle.
Panama's fourteen days divide evenly into the week, so it lands on the same days forever. Every other weekend is a three-day weekend, permanently, and you can build a life around that.
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Four in a row against three
The other difference is the block. Four consecutive twelve-hour night shifts is a genuinely hard run, and the fourth one is where people feel it. Panama never asks for more than three.
What you get for it is four days off together, which is real recovery time and long enough to travel or work a block of paid duty jobs without cutting into your sleep.
Which to bid
If your life outside work has fixed commitments — kids' sports, a class, a partner on a normal week — Panama is easier to live with. If you want long stretches of time off and nothing weekly to protect, four on four off gives you more usable days in a row.
Full detail on each pattern: 4 on 4 off schedule · Panama schedule
In Canada this is a bargaining question
Everything above holds either side of the border — the cycles are the cycles. What changes here is who decides, and what the two cost.
A Canadian service does not simply adopt a rotation. The schedule sits in the collective agreement as a compressed work week article, and the Toronto Police Association and OPP agreements both carry one. In the OPP's case the terms of a compressed work week agreement are themselves subject to the grievance procedure. So moving from 4 on 4 off to Panama is not a decision a new inspector makes — it is bargained, and it stays until it is bargained again.
It also does not follow that a whole service runs one of them. The Toronto Police Association agreement carries a Shift Schedules schedule in the plural, so which one you work can depend on where you are posted. The answer is in the agreement.
What the province still decides
Both of these run the same shift length, so provincial overtime rules treat them alike — but the rules themselves differ. Ontario triggers overtime after 44 hours in a week and has no daily trigger. British Columbia triggers after 8 hours in a day or 40 in a week, with double time past 12. Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Newfoundland and Labrador calculate it at 1.5 times the minimum wage rather than your own rate. Where the cycle does not fit a calendar week, hours can be averaged over two to four weeks by written agreement — and in a unionised service, your union makes that agreement.
Checked 7 August 2026. Provincial rules are quoted from the Employment Standards Act of the province named and, for Quebec, from the CNESST; federal provisions from the Treasury Board agreements. Employment standards are amended and collective agreements are renegotiated — check the current text before relying on a threshold or a figure.
The shift schedule you actually work
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