Clopening
Working a closing shift immediately followed by an opening shift the next day, leaving only a few hours between them — common in retail and food service.
Clopening (a portmanteau of 'closing' and 'opening') describes a schedule where an employee closes a business late at night and is then scheduled to open it again just a few hours later the same day or the next morning. A common pattern is closing at midnight and opening again at 6am — leaving barely enough time to commute home, sleep, and return, let alone handle anything else in between. It's most prevalent in retail, food service, and hospitality, where operating hours span early morning to late night and scheduling is often built around minimizing labor costs rather than employee recovery time.
The health and safety research on clopening schedules is consistent with broader shift-work research: compressed rest periods between shifts disrupt sleep, impair reaction time and judgment, and are linked to higher rates of workplace accidents and errors. Unlike a rotating shift schedule spread over a longer cycle, clopening compresses the disruption into a single, acute turnaround — which is part of why it draws more targeted regulatory attention than shift work more broadly.
A growing number of jurisdictions have moved to restrict or specifically regulate clopening as part of broader predictive scheduling and fair workweek laws — commonly requiring either a minimum rest period between shifts (often 9 to 11 hours) or premium 'predictability pay' if an employer schedules a shorter turnaround. Where no such law applies, clopening is generally legal, and employees have limited recourse beyond raising the issue directly with a manager or scheduling department, since federal law imposes no general minimum rest period between shifts.
Where Clopening Is Restricted
- A growing list of cities and states with fair workweek or predictive scheduling laws require a minimum rest period (commonly 9–11 hours) between a closing and an opening shift.
- Employers who schedule a shorter turnaround in these jurisdictions typically owe the employee a 'predictability pay' premium.
- Outside these jurisdictions, federal law imposes no minimum rest period between shifts, and clopening is generally legal.
If You're Regularly Scheduled to Clopen
Check whether your city or state has a predictive scheduling or fair workweek law — many workers don't realize a rest-period protection or premium pay requirement applies to their specific location. If no such law applies, raising the specific health and safety concern directly with a manager or scheduling coordinator, and asking whether the schedule could be adjusted to avoid back-to-back close-open pairings, is the most direct available option.
Example
A retail employee closes a store at 11pm and is scheduled to open the same location at 6am the next day — a 7-hour turnaround that, after a commute in both directions, leaves roughly 4 hours for sleep. In a jurisdiction with a fair workweek law requiring an 11-hour minimum rest period between shifts, this schedule would either be prohibited or require the employer to pay a predictability premium for the short turnaround; without such a law in place, the schedule is legal as written.