commerce Commerce is the organized Complex system, system of activities, functions, procedures and institutions that directly or indirectly contribute to the smooth, unhindered large-scale exchange (distribution through Financial transaction, transactiona ...

and industry, 24/7 or 24-7 service (usually pronounced "twenty-four seven") is

service Service may refer to: Activities * Administrative service, a required part of the workload of university faculty * Civil service, the body of employees of a government * Community service, volunteer service for the benefit of a community or a ...

that is available at any time and usually, every day. An alternate

orthography An orthography is a set of convention (norm), conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, punctuation, Word#Word boundaries, word boundaries, capitalization, hyphenation, and Emphasis (typography), emphasis. Most national ...

for the numerical part includes 24×7 (usually pronounced "twenty-four by seven"). The numerals stand for "24 hours a day, 7 days a week". Less commonly used, 24/7/52 (adding "52 weeks") and 24/7/365 service (adding "365 days") make it clear that service is available every day of the year.

Synonym A synonym is a word, morpheme, or phrase that means precisely or nearly the same as another word, morpheme, or phrase in a given language. For example, in the English language, the words ''begin'', ''start'', ''commence'', and ''initiate'' are a ...

s include around-the-clock service (with/without hyphens) and all day every day, especially in

British English British English is the set of Variety (linguistics), varieties of the English language native to the United Kingdom, especially Great Britain. More narrowly, it can refer specifically to the English language in England, or, more broadly, to ...

, and nonstop service, but the latter can also refer to other things, such as public transport services which go between two stations without stopping. The ''

Oxford English Dictionary The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the principal historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP), a University of Oxford publishing house. The dictionary, which published its first editio ...

'' (OED) defines the term as "twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week; constantly". It lists its first reference to 24/7 to be from a 1983 story in the US magazine ''

Sports Illustrated ''Sports Illustrated'' (''SI'') is an American sports magazine first published in August 1954. Founded by Stuart Scheftel, it was the first magazine with a circulation of over one million to win the National Magazine Award for General Excellen ...

'' in which

Louisiana State University Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, commonly referred to as Louisiana State University (LSU), is an American Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Baton Rouge, Louis ...

basketball player Jerry Reynolds describes his jump shot in just such a way: 24–7–365. 24/7 service is employed in many settings including commercial businesses, emergency services, transport,

utilities A public utility company (usually just utility) is an organization that maintains the infrastructure for a public service (often also providing a service using that infrastructure). Public utilities are subject to forms of public control and r ...

, certain industrial processes, and some human services.

Examples

Commercial business

24/7 service might be offered by a

supermarket A supermarket is a self-service Retail#Types of outlets, shop offering a wide variety of food, Drink, beverages and Household goods, household products, organized into sections. Strictly speaking, a supermarket is larger and has a wider selecti ...

convenience store A convenience store, convenience shop, bakkal, bodega, corner store, corner shop, superette or mini-mart is a small retail store that stocks a range of everyday items such as convenience food, groceries, beverages, tobacco products, lotter ...

, ATM,

automated online assistant A virtual assistant (VA) is a software agent that can perform a range of tasks or services for a user based on user input such as commands or questions, including verbal ones. Such technologies often incorporate chatbot capabilities to streaml ...

filling station A filling station (also known as a gas station [] or petrol station []) is a facility that sells fuel and engine lubricants for motor vehicles. The most common fuels sold are gasoline (or petrol) and diesel fuel. Fuel dispensers are used to ...

restaurant A restaurant is an establishment that prepares and serves food and drinks to customers. Meals are generally served and eaten on the premises, but many restaurants also offer take-out and Delivery (commerce), food delivery services. Restaurants ...

, concierge services or a staffed

datacenter A data center is a building, a dedicated space within a building, or a group of buildings used to house computer systems and associated components, such as telecommunications and storage systems. Since IT operations are crucial for business ...

, or a staffing company that specializes in providing nurses since often nurses cover shifts 24/7 at hospital which are open 24/7. 24/7 services may also include

taxicab A taxi, also known as a taxicab or simply a cab, is a type of vehicle for hire with a Driving, driver, used by a single passenger or small group of passengers, often for a non-shared ride. A taxicab conveys passengers between locations of thei ...

s, security services, and in densely populated urban areas, construction crews.

Emergency services and transport

Public 24/7 services often include those provided by emergency medical providers,

police The police are Law enforcement organization, a constituted body of Law enforcement officer, people empowered by a State (polity), state with the aim of Law enforcement, enforcing the law and protecting the Public order policing, public order ...

fire Fire is the rapid oxidation of a fuel in the exothermic chemical process of combustion, releasing heat, light, and various reaction Product (chemistry), products. Flames, the most visible portion of the fire, are produced in the combustion re ...

and

emergency telephone number An emergency telephone number is a number that allows a caller to contact local emergency services for assistance. The emergency number differs from country to country; it is typically a three-digit number so that it can be easily remembered and ...

s, such as

9-1-1 911, sometimes written , is an emergency telephone number for Argentina, Canada, the Dominican Republic, Fiji, Jordan, Mexico, Pakistan, Maldives, Palau, Panama, Iraq, the Philippines, Sint Maarten, the United States, and Uruguay, as well as ...

in North America. Transport services like

airports An airport is an aerodrome with extended facilities, mostly for commercial air transport. They usually consist of a landing area, which comprises an aerially accessible open space including at least one operationally active surface such ...

airlines An airline is a company that provides air transport services for traveling passengers or freight (cargo). Airlines use aircraft to supply these services and may form partnerships or alliances with other airlines for codeshare agreements, in ...

, and ferry services, and in some cases trains and buses, may provide 24-hour service. Examples of public transport services operating 24/7 include the

New York City Subway The New York City Subway is a rapid transit system in New York City serving the New York City boroughs, boroughs of Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx. It is owned by the government of New York City and leased to the New York City Tr ...

Staten Island Railway The Staten Island Railway (SIR) is a rapid transit, railroad line in the New York City borough (New York City), borough of Staten Island. It is owned by the Staten Island Rapid Transit Operating Authority (SIRTOA), a subsidiary of the Metropol ...

PATH A path is a route for physical travel – see Trail. Path or PATH may also refer to: Physical paths of different types * Bicycle path * Bridle path, used by people on horseback * Course (navigation), the intended path of a vehicle * Desir ...

, PATCO, the Copenhagen Metro, and the Red Line and Blue Line of the

Chicago "L" The Chicago "L" (short for "elevated railway, elevated") is the rapid transit system serving the city of Chicago and some of its surrounding suburbs in the U.S. state of Illinois. Operated by the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA), it is the four ...

Industrial and utility services

Industrial and manufacturing facilities—especially those that operate near or at capacity, or which depend upon processes (such as

production line A production line is a set of sequential operations established in a factory where components are assembled to make a finished article or where materials are put through a refining process to produce an end-product that is suitable for onward ...

s) that are costly to suspend—often provide 24/7 services. Similarly, utilities generally must provide multiple 24/7 services. For instance, an electricity provider will handle outage reports 24/7 and dispatch emergency repair technicians 24/7, in addition to monitoring electrical infrastructure and producing electricity at all times. The same applies to telecommunications and internet service providers.

Nonprofit and charity services

Many crisis centers and

crisis hotline A crisis hotline is a phone number people can call to get immediate emergency telephone counseling, usually by trained volunteers. The first such service was founded in England in 1951 and such hotlines have existed in most major cities of the E ...

s provide 24/7 services.

Methods

Continuous operations

Many 24/7 services operate continuously at all times with complete shift staff.

Geographical alternation

24/7 services that can utilize virtual offices, such as

call centers A call centre (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth spelling) or call center (American English, American spelling; American and British English spelling differences#-re, -er, see spelling differences) is a managed capability th ...

, may employ daytime agents in alternating

time zone A time zone is an area which observes a uniform standard time for legal, Commerce, commercial and social purposes. Time zones tend to follow the boundaries between Country, countries and their Administrative division, subdivisions instead of ...

Service disruption

In some cases, 24/7 services may be temporarily unavailable under certain circumstances. Such scenarios may include scheduled maintenance,

upgrade Upgrading is the process of replacing a product with a newer version of the same product. In computing and consumer electronics, an upgrade is generally a replacement of hardware, software or firmware with a newer or better version, in order to ...

s or

renovation Renovation (also called remodeling) is the process of improving broken, damaged, or outdated structures. Renovations are typically done on either commercial or residential buildings. Additionally, renovation can refer to making something new, o ...

, emergency repair, and

injunction An injunction is an equitable remedy in the form of a special court order compelling a party to do or refrain from doing certain acts. It was developed by the English courts of equity but its origins go back to Roman law and the equitable rem ...

. 24/7 services which depend upon the physical presence of employees at a given location may also be interrupted when a minimum number of employees cannot be present due to scenarios such as

extreme weather Extreme weather includes unexpected, unusual, severe weather, severe, or unseasonal weather; weather at the extremes of the historical distribution—the range that has been seen in the past. Extreme events are based on a location's recorded weat ...

death threat A death threat is a threat, often made anonymously, by one person or a group of people to kill another person or group of people. These threats are often designed to intimidate victims in order to manipulate their behaviour, in which case a d ...

natural disaster A natural disaster is the very harmful impact on a society or community brought by natural phenomenon or Hazard#Natural hazard, hazard. Some examples of natural hazards include avalanches, droughts, earthquakes, floods, heat waves, landslides ...

s, or mandatory evacuation. Some 24/7 services close during major

holiday A holiday is a day or other period of time set aside for festivals or recreation. ''Public holidays'' are set by public authorities and vary by state or region. Religious holidays are set by religious organisations for their members and are often ...

Redundancy and hardening

24/7 services often employ complex schemes that ensure their resistance to potential disruption, resilience in the event of disruption, and minimum standards of overall reliability. Critical infrastructure may be supported by

failover Failover is switching to a redundant or standby computer server, system, hardware component or network upon the failure or abnormal termination of the previously active application, server, system, hardware component, or network in a computer ...

systems,

electric generator In electricity generation, a generator, also called an ''electric generator'', ''electrical generator'', and ''electromagnetic generator'' is an electromechanical device that converts mechanical energy to electrical energy for use in an externa ...

s, and

satellite A satellite or an artificial satellite is an object, typically a spacecraft, placed into orbit around a celestial body. They have a variety of uses, including communication relay, weather forecasting, navigation ( GPS), broadcasting, scient ...

communications. In the event of catastrophic disaster, some 24/7 services prepare entirely redundant, parallel infrastructures, often in other geographic regions.

Long-term post-COVID disruption

At the beginning of the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

in 2020, many stores ended 24/7 operations, ostensibly on a temporary basis, in order to clean and sanitize their establishments. After the widespread availability of vaccines, however, many such businesses have not returned to 24-hour service for a variety of reasons. Some proprietors in the United States originally blamed pandemic unemployment benefits for a lack of workers, yet employers still struggled to resume pre-pandemic hours after these programs ended, citing continued staff shortages and demands for better working conditions among jobseekers. Many businesses that were once broadly open for 24/7 operations only resumed such service across some of their establishments or have ended 24/7 operations altogether, as in the case of

Walmart Walmart Inc. (; formerly Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.) is an American multinational retail corporation that operates a chain of hypermarkets (also called supercenters), discount department stores, and grocery stores in the United States and 23 other ...

Criticism

24/7 workplaces can put employees under conditions that limit their personal life choices and development. Calls for a rehumanisation of the 24/7 workplace have therefore been voiced. Some have also remarked on the "collective mania" especially in the US that takes a sort of pride in the "work at all times" attitude exemplified by the 24/7 concept. In England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, the Sunday trading laws prevent many stores from truly opening 24/7, but they sometimes advertise as such. Some core services such as

s are exempt from the law requiring them to close. A campaign against changing the law was supported by many bodies, including the

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the State religion#State churches, established List of Christian denominations, Christian church in England and the Crown Dependencies. It is the mother church of the Anglicanism, Anglican Christian tradition, ...

, the

Church in Wales The Church in Wales () is an Anglican church in Wales, composed of six dioceses. The Archbishop of Wales does not have a fixed archiepiscopal see, but serves concurrently as one of the six diocesan bishops. The position is currently held b ...

, and many secular bodies in an effort called

Keep Sunday Special Keep Sunday Special is a British campaign group set up in 1985 by Michael Schluter to oppose plans to introduce Sunday trading in England and Wales (there are different arrangements in Scotland and Northern Ireland). The Keep Sunday Special camp ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:24 7 service Working time Ethically disputed working conditions