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How Many Hours Is a 2-2-3 Schedule? How to Total Them

By Frame Sixty Labs · Last updated: October 12, 2026

What is a 2-2-3 schedule?

A 2-2-3 schedule, also called the Pitman or Panama schedule, is a 14-day rotation of 12-hour shifts: two days on, two off, three on, two off, two on, three off. Then it repeats. Four teams cover a 24-hour operation, each team works every other weekend, and nobody works more than three days in a row. It is common in hospitals, emergency services, dispatch centers, manufacturing plants and casinos, on days, on nights, or on a slow rotation between the two.

Laid out on a calendar, one cycle looks like this. The weekday it starts on varies by employer; this version runs Wednesday to Tuesday, which will matter in a moment.

Seven shifts in 14 days. Every shift is 12 hours, so the cycle is 7 × 12:00 = 84:00.

How many hours is a 2-2-3 schedule?

The honest answer is per cycle, not per week, because no week on a 2-2-3 is average.

• Per 14-day cycle: 84 hours, from seven 12-hour shifts.
• Average per week: 42 hours, which is 84 divided by 2. You never work a 42-hour week; you alternate between a light week and a heavy one.
• Per 4 weeks: 168 hours, two full cycles.
• Per year: 26 cycles of 84 hours is 2,184 hours. A 40-hour schedule is 2,080. The 2-2-3 adds 104 hours a year, about two and a half 40-hour weeks.
• Average per month: 182 hours, which is 2,184 divided by 12.

Those figures assume the shift is a true 12 hours of paid time. Many 12-hour shifts are scheduled as 12 hours 30 minutes with a 30-minute unpaid meal, which comes to the same 12:00 worked. If your meal is unpaid and your shift is scheduled as a flat 12:00, you work 11:30 and the cycle is 7 × 11:30 = 80:30, not 84. Paid vs unpaid breaks on a timesheet covers which breaks come off the total.

Here is how the 2-2-3 compares with the other common 12-hour rotations. Every one of them except fixed three-12s averages 42 hours a week; the difference is how the shifts are bunched.

If you are on an 8-hour or 10-hour compressed schedule instead, 4/10 and 9/80 schedules has the same treatment for those.

Why are the two weeks 36 and 48, and not 42 and 42?

Because overtime, under the general federal US rule, is counted per workweek: a fixed, regularly recurring block of seven days that the employer chooses. It can start on any day and at any hour, it must stay the same once set, and it cannot be moved around to avoid overtime. Your 84 hours get sliced by whatever seven-day window your employer picked, and on a 2-2-3 the slice is uneven.

Take the cycle in the table above and try every possible workweek start day. Only two results are possible.

Those weekday labels belong to this particular layout. Shift the whole pattern to different days and the labels move with it, but the rule does not: a 2-2-3 workweek always holds either 3 and 4 shifts or 5 and 2. Most employers set the workweek so the split is 36 and 48, because 20 hours of overtime every cycle is expensive. Some do not, and if yours is a 60/24 employer, that heavy week is paid accordingly. The first thing to find out before totaling a 2-2-3 timesheet is the day your workweek starts. It is usually printed on the timesheet or pay stub; if not, payroll can tell you.

There is one more reason not to think in 42s. Overtime does not average across the cycle: 36 hours in week one does not bank 4 hours of credit against week two. Each workweek stands on its own, which is the same rule that makes a biweekly timesheet two separate weeks rather than one 80-hour block.

How do you total a 2-2-3 week from real punches?

Scheduled shifts are 12:00. Punched shifts are not, because you clock in a few minutes early and out a few minutes late, and a 30-minute unpaid meal has to come off. Total the real punches, not the schedule.

1. Find out which day your workweek starts. This decides which shifts go in which week. For the example below the workweek runs Wednesday to Tuesday, so the cycle splits 3 and 4.
2. List each shift on the date it started, with the clock-in, clock-out and unpaid break. Night shifts go on the day they began, unless your employer says otherwise.
3. Subtract the clock-in from the clock-out in hours and minutes, borrowing 60 minutes where needed. 7:21 PM − 6:52 AM is 19:21 − 6:52 = 12:29. Hours between two times walks through the borrowing.
4. Deduct the unpaid meal from each shift. 12:29 − 0:30 = 11:59. Paid rest breaks stay in.
5. Add the shifts in each workweek separately, in hours and minutes, carrying 60 minutes into the hour.
6. Convert each week to decimal and apply overtime to that week alone.

Worked example: the three-shift week

Day shift, scheduled 6:45 AM to 7:15 PM with a 30-minute unpaid meal.

Adding: 11:59 + 12:04 = 24:03, then 24:03 + 12:12 = 36:15. In decimal, 15 minutes is 0.25, so the week is 36.25 hours.

The trap on 12-hour shifts is the same one that catches every H:MM total, and it bites harder here because the minutes are so often 59 or 04. Type the punched values into an ordinary calculator as 11.59 + 12.04 + 12.12 and you get 35.75. The real total is 36.25. That is 30 minutes gone from one week, and why your phone’s calculator can’t add time explains exactly where they went.

Worked example: the four-shift week

Adding: 11:59 + 12:06 = 24:05, 24:05 + 12:03 = 36:08, 36:08 + 12:12 = 48:20. In decimal, 20 minutes is 0.333, so the week is 48.33 hours. The cycle is 36:15 + 48:20 = 84:35, 35 minutes over the scheduled 84 because of early punches, and every one of those minutes is paid time.

How is overtime and pay calculated on a 2-2-3?

Apply the 40-hour test to each workweek separately, at a rate of $35 an hour and time-and-a-half of $52.50.

• Week 1, 36:15. All straight time. 36.25 × $35.00 = $1,268.75.
• Week 2, 48:20. 48:20 − 40:00 = 8:20 of overtime, which is 8.333 hours. Straight time: 40 × $35.00 = $1,400.00. Overtime: 8.333 × $52.50 = $437.50. Week total: $1,837.50.
• Cycle, 84:35. $1,268.75 + $1,837.50 = $3,106.25.

Now look at what the workweek start day does to a perfectly scheduled cycle of seven 12:00 shifts, 84:00 exactly, at the same $35 rate.

Same 84 hours, same rate, $210.00 apart. The difference is 12 extra overtime hours at the $17.50 premium. That is why the workweek start day is the first fact to establish, and why a 2-2-3 worker who moves between employers can see a different paycheck for an identical schedule. How to calculate overtime has the general method, and shift differential pay covers what happens to the overtime rate when nights carry a premium.

Two variations are worth knowing about. Federal rules let hospitals and residential care facilities adopt an 8-and-80 system, under which overtime is owed past 8 hours in a day or 80 in a 14-day period. On 12-hour shifts that pays 4 hours of overtime every shift, so most such employers keep 12-hour staff on the 40-hour workweek instead, but it is worth asking which system you are on. Separately, some states have daily overtime thresholds that can apply to a 12-hour day regardless of the weekly total. Both are reasons to total your own hours and compare them with the pay stub.

Which day does a night shift belong to?

A night 2-2-3 runs something like 6:45 PM to 7:15 AM. Time it by continuing the clock past midnight: 7:15 AM is 31:15 on a clock that started the day before, so 31:15 − 18:45 = 12:30, and 12:30 − 0:30 = 12:00 after the unpaid meal. Overnight and overtime hours covers the past-midnight subtraction in detail.

The question that actually changes the total is which day the 12:00 is filed under. The usual convention is the date the shift started, so a Sunday 6:45 PM start is Sunday’s shift even though most of it happens on Monday. On a Monday-start workweek that puts the whole shift in the week that is ending, and if your employer instead splits the shift at midnight, 5:15 lands in one week and 6:45 in the next. Either method is used; what matters is that every shift in the cycle is filed the same way, because a shift that drifts across the boundary can turn a 36/48 cycle into something else and move overtime hours between weeks. If your pay stub’s weekly totals never match your own, this is the first place to look.

Frequently asked questions

How many hours a week is a 2-2-3 schedule?

An average of 42, because the 14-day cycle holds seven 12-hour shifts, which is 84 hours. No single week is 42. The two workweeks hold either 3 and 4 shifts, 36:00 and 48:00, or 5 and 2 shifts, 60:00 and 24:00, depending on which day your employer’s workweek starts.

Is a 2-2-3 schedule full time?

Almost always. 84 hours every two weeks is more than the 80 of a standard 40-hour schedule, and the year comes to about 2,184 hours against 2,080. A fixed three-12s schedule, by contrast, is 36 hours a week, which many hospitals classify as 0.9 FTE. The exact label is the employer’s definition; part-time vs full-time hours explains the thresholds.

Do you get overtime on a 2-2-3 schedule?

Under the general federal US rule, any time over 40 hours in the employer’s fixed workweek. On a 36/48 split that is 8 hours of overtime per cycle; on a 60/24 split it is 20. Some hospitals and residential care facilities use the federal 8-and-80 alternative, and some states have daily thresholds. This is general guidance, not legal advice.

How many hours a year is a 2-2-3 schedule?

26 cycles of 84 hours is 2,184 hours, an average of 182 a month. A 40-hour schedule is 2,080 hours a year, so the 2-2-3 adds 104 hours, about two and a half 40-hour weeks. Work hours in a month has the monthly figures for other schedules.

Is the Pitman schedule the same as 2-2-3?

Yes. Pitman, Panama and 2-2-3 all name the same 14-day pattern of two on, two off, three on, two off, two on, three off, on 12-hour shifts with every other weekend off. DuPont is a different 28-day rotation that also averages 42 hours a week, and 4-on-4-off is an 8-day cycle that averages 42 as well.

Which day does a 12-hour night shift count toward?

Usually the date it started, so a Sunday 6:45 PM to Monday 7:15 AM shift is 12:00 worked on Sunday. Some employers split it at midnight instead. The choice matters only at the boundary between two workweeks, but there it can move hours between weeks and change the overtime, so check your timesheet or ask payroll, and file every shift the same way.