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9/80 vs 4/10
Both fit forty hours into fewer days. One gives you a day off every other week; the other gives you one every week.
9/80
Day shiftNight shift24-hour tourDay off
4/10
Day shiftNight shift24-hour tourDay off
| 9/80 | vs | 4/10 |
|---|---|---|
| The cycle | ||
| 9 hoursPlus one 8-hour day | Shift length | 10 hours |
| 14 days | Cycle length | 7 days |
| 40 hours | Average week | 40 hours |
| 2, then 3 | Days off a week | 3 |
| About 26 | Extra days off a year | About 52 |
| Your week | ||
| No | A day off every week | Yes |
| NoAlternating Fridays | Same days off every week | Yes |
| Yes | Shorter working day | No |
| Yes | The workweek splits mid-shift | No |
| Where it is used | ||
| Yes | Common in government and office roles | Yes |
| No | Common on patrol | Yes |
Twenty-six days off against fifty-two
The 4/10 gives you a third day off every single week. The 9/80 gives you one every other week — about twenty-six a year instead of fifty-two.
What you get back is an hour. A nine-hour day is meaningfully easier than a ten-hour day, and by Thursday that hour is noticeable.
The split workweek
This is the 9/80's oddity. To keep each week at exactly forty hours, the pay week usually starts partway through the working Friday — commonly at the midpoint of that shift.
Without the split, the two weeks would fall as forty-four and thirty-six, and the first would trigger overtime. Where exactly the line falls is set by your agency, and it matters for how your hours are counted. The 4/10 has no equivalent complication.
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Which suits which job
4/10 works on patrol because the overlap between watches puts more units on the street at peak times. The 9/80 is a weekday, office-shaped schedule — investigations, analysts, administration, crime labs — and rarely fits a round-the-clock post.
Full detail on each pattern: 9/80 schedule · 4/10 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 9/80 to 4/10 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.
The two do not cost the same in every province
This is where the choice stops being about lifestyle. Ontario has no daily overtime trigger at all — overtime starts after 44 hours in a work week however the hours are arranged, so a 10-hour day and a 9-hour day are treated alike. British Columbia is the opposite: time and a half after 8 hours in a day, and double time past 12. Under those rules the 4/10 side is a materially more expensive way to cover the same ground, and the daily trigger does the deciding rather than the weekly total.
Ontario's daily ceiling follows the roster rather than the statute: the cap is eight hours or the established regular workday, if it is longer. Put a 10-hour day in the agreement and 10 hours becomes the lawful day. That is why the agreement matters more than the Act here.
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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