Daily Working Hours: Does the 8-Hour Day Include Lunch Breaks?

Dear All, Please confirm if the daily working hours are 8 hours per day, including the lunch break, or excluding it.

Dear Member,

It is excluding the lunch break.

R N KHOLA

As per the provisions of the Factories Act, the worker/employee is required to work for 48 hours in a week or 8 hours in a day, excluding a break.

Regards, R R Kapoor
Vadodara

If a company works in three shifts of 8 hours, what would be the lunch hour timings when the Factory Act states that you cannot work more than 5 hours continuously?

Dear, As per the rules and provisions, lunch break timing will be excluded going forward. You can refer to Section 54 of the Factories Act, 1948:

Daily hours

Subject to the provisions of Section 51, no adult worker shall be required or allowed to work in a factory for more than nine hours in any day.

If a company operates in three shifts of 8 hours each, adhering to the Factory Act's stipulation that no one should work more than 5 hours continuously, the lunch hour timings would typically fall during the 5th hour of each shift. This ensures that employees have a mandatory break for lunch within the specified legal limit.

Dear Alok ji, I hope you have read the query before replying. In a scenario where there is an 8-hour shift and the plant is operating in three shifts, how is the overlapping of shifts possible, contrary to the provisions of the Factories Act?

Regards,

Working Hours and Lunch Breaks

Eight hours of working time excludes the lunch break. However, there are exceptions when an organization operates in three shifts, with each shift, including the lunch break, lasting eight hours. Otherwise, it would be a violation of overlapping shifts under the Factories Act. Similarly, within the same organization, employees may work in the general shift where the eight hours of working time exclude the lunch break, as there is no possibility of shift overlap.

Regards, S K Bandyopadhyay

Understanding Work Hours in Different Industries

09 hours in a day means 08 hours for working, and the rest are for rest/lunch or tea breaks, where production stops, and workers/employees leave their workplace to go for a proper lunch. In that case, we have to exclude the lunch hours from the duty hours. This means the total duty hours will be 08:30 or 09:00 hours, depending on the lunchtime.

In most companies, the general shift timing is from 09:00 to 05:30 or 09:00 to 06:00, where the lunch timing is for 30 minutes, then duty will end at 05:30. If the lunchtime is for 1 hour, then duty will end at 06:00 pm. This shift mostly covers commercial staff such as HR, Account, etc., and this type of industry is called a non-continuous process.

Continuous Process Industries

In a continuous process where machines cannot stop due to the process, the shift is mostly for 08 hours, like 06:00 to 02:00, 02:00 to 10:00, and 10:00 to 06:00. There is a general shift of the last mentioned.