Labor

Brazil Moves To End the Six-Day Workweek

Brazil's lower house has approved a constitutional amendment that would ban the common six-day workweek. It would make jobs even harder to find. 

Mariana Trujillo | 6.21.2026 7:00 AM

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(Illustration: Midjourney/Kitti Kahotong/Dreamstime)

About one-third of Brazilians in formal employment have a "6x1" workweek—six days of work followed by one day of rest—which is particularly common in sectors such as air travel, hotels, healthcare, retail, and food service. In late May, Brazil's Chamber of Deputies approved a constitutional amendment that would effectively ban this work arrangement, sending the proposal to the Senate for ratification. 

The proposal would reduce Brazil's constitutionally set cap on weekly working hours from 44 to 40 and require two paid rest days per week. In Brazil, service workers are typically paid a fixed monthly salary rather than an hourly wage, as is more common in the United States. Because the amendment would prohibit employers from reducing those salaries to reflect the shorter schedule, employers would have to pay the same monthly wage for roughly 10 percent fewer hours of work. 

The amendment was introduced by federal deputy Erika Hilton, a member of Brazil's lower house from the Socialism and Liberty Party (PSOL). In Hilton's view, "Working six days just to get one day off isn't a life. It's exploitation….You can't live only one-seventh of your own life."

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