May 10, 2024
The Iranian government has decided to end the 5-1/2 day workweek and shift to a five-day workweek for government employees, but cannot decide whether the weekend should be Friday and Saturday, or Thursday and Friday. The Majlis has already approved cutting the workweek from 44 hours to 40. The issue now is the weekend.
Whatever the government decides will be the weekend for government staff is likely to end up being the weekend for the private sector as it likely shifts to a five-day week in the coming years. The government’s current workweek includes a half-day on Thursdays. Many in the regime seem to prefer making the weekend Thursday and Friday (like the school week) to be out of synch, intentionally, with the rest of the world.
But the private sector feels strongly that the weekend should be Friday and Saturday so businesses can be in contact with world markets four days in the week and not just three, as happens with a Thursday-Friday weekend. Most Muslim majority countries have a Friday-Saturday weekend.
A few, like Lebanon, Pakistan, Indonesia, Tunisia and Morocco, have a Saturday-Sunday weekend. None has a Thursday-Friday weekend, apart from Iran. President Raisi’s parliamentary assistant, Mohammad Hossaini, has announced that the government prefers closure on Thursdays while business groups have been lobbying for closure on Saturdays.
Ali Kolahi of the Chamber of Commerce posted on X April 15 that opponents of making Saturday the other weekend day have argued in closed-door meetings at the Majlis that Saturday is unacceptable because it is the Jewish Sabbath. But none of the published documents from the government advocating for Thursday have been seen making that argument.
