24/7 service

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In commerce and industry, 24/7 or 24-7 service (usually pronounced "twenty-four seven") is service that is available at any time and usually, every day.^[1] An alternate orthography 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.

Synonyms include around-the-clock service (with/without hyphens) and all day every day, especially in British English,^[2][3] 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 (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 in which Louisiana State University player Jerry Reynolds describes his jump shot in just such a way: 24–7–365.

24/7 service might be offered by a

Public 24/7 services often include those provided by

Transport services like

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

Many crisis centers and crisis hotlines provide 24/7 services.

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

24/7 services that can utilize

Some 24/7 services close during major holidays.

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

At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, many stores ended 24/7 operations, ostensibly on a temporary basis, in order to clean and sanitize their establishments.^[4] 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.^[4][5]

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.^[6] 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.^[7]

In England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, the

Look up 24/7 or twenty-four seven in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• High availability
• Shopping hours