Johor reverting to Saturday and Sunday weekends from Jan 1, 2025

SINGAPORE: Johor’s weekend days off will be changed to Saturday and Sunday from Jan 1 next year, Johor regent Tunku Ismail Sultan Ibrahim announced on Monday (Oct 7).
The Malaysian state’s weekend rest days have been on Friday and Saturday since January 2014 to allow Muslims to perform their prayers, as decreed by Sultan Ibrahim Iskandar.  
The change to Saturday and Sunday takes place with the consent of the Sultan – who is also currently Malaysia’s king – and after considering the views of the Johor Islamic Religious Council, said Tunku Ismail in a Facebook post.
He has decreed Johor chief minister Onn Hafiz Ghazi and Johor’s mufti Yahya Ahmad to “discuss and study every angle and aspect regarding this matter”.
“I hope that the private sector, the government and related parties allow sufficient time and space for Muslim workers to perform Friday prayers accordingly,” the regent added.
In 2022, it was reported that the Johor state government was reviewing its weekend days off.
Mr Onn Hafiz noted at the time grouses from the public on different rest days for the government and the private sector.
He said the state government would review it so that parents and their children are able to rest on the same days. Johor’s primary and secondary schools observe the state’s weekend days off. 
He added that the change would affect some 576,000 students and more than 1.7 million workers in Johor, about 93 per cent of them in the private sector.
Aligning weekend days off would also increase the state’s productivity and efficiency, Johor Jaya assemblyman Liow Cai Tung said at the time.
The federal government operates on a Saturday-Sunday weekend, but some states such as Kedah, Kelantan, and Terengganu observe Friday and Saturday as official weekend rest days.
Prior to 2014, Johor’s weekend days off were Saturday and Sunday.  
When the review was announced in 2022, news outlet Malay Mail quoted a source as saying the Johor state government might implement an official two-and-a-half-day weekend, with half of Friday, as well as Saturday and Sunday, as rest days. 
But there was no mention of whether this would be the case in Tunku Ismail’s announcement on Monday.