Articles · Labor
Divisor 200 or 240? The new cost of the working hour and of paid weekly rest
Reducing working hours without reducing pay makes the working hour more expensive and changes the fraction of paid weekly rest (DSR).
What is now treated as a day off or a regular working day will become paid weekly rest (DSR), with a 100% premium if worked. The hourly divisor, currently 220, has not yet been redefined: should we use 200 or 240?
The change guarantees that no one will have their pay reduced. But if employees work fewer hours and earn the same, the working hour becomes more expensive for the company. To illustrate, I use the national minimum wage projected by the Federal Government for 2027, of R$ 1,741.00.
Current rule: 44 hours a week
To find the hourly rate, the 220 divisor is used: 44 hours divided by 6 days = 7.33 hours; multiplied by 30 days = 220 hours. Hourly rate: R$ 1,741.00 ÷ 220 = R$ 7.91.
New rule: 40 hours a week
- Divisor 200 scenario: traditional case law divides 40 hours by 6 days (5 worked and 1 of rest) = 6.66 hours a day; multiplied by 30 = 200 hours. Hourly rate: R$ 1,741.00 ÷ 200 = R$ 8.70, a 10% increase in the cost of the hour.
- Divisor 240 scenario: if the company divides 40 hours by 5 days, the working day becomes 8 hours; multiplied by 30 = 240 hours. Hourly rate: R$ 1,741.00 ÷ 240 = R$ 7.25. The Labor Courts are unlikely to accept this scenario, because the Constitution prohibits pay reductions.
The jump in paid weekly rest
For those who receive variable pay (commissions, overtime, night-shift premium, production bonuses), the impact is immediate. Today the DSR fraction is 1/6. With the new text expressly requiring two days of rest, the fraction becomes 2/5.
This jump does not affect only the monthly payroll. It reaches the calculation base of all related payments: vacation pay plus the one-third vacation bonus, the 13th-month salary, FGTS (severance fund) and INSS (social security) contributions and other payroll charges, overtime, and the night-shift, unhealthy-work and hazard premiums.
For the numbers to add up safely, departments cannot work in isolation. Operations should align with financial planning and validate the assumptions of the 2027 budget now.
Left for a future article: the 210 and 252 divisor scenarios during the transition, and vacations starting in the two days before the DSR.
Originally published in Portuguese on Diego Amâncio Dias's LinkedIn.