‘We’ve been waiting for this for years’: Johor families cheer return of Saturday-Sunday weekends

ISKANDAR PUTERI – Johor resident Shernice Chong was all smiles on her commute home to Kulai from Singapore on Jan 3, despite the Friday-night traffic and 90-minute wait at the Second Link highway. 

The mother of two daughters was excited about weekend plans for her family, after the southern Malaysian state reinstated Saturday-Sunday weekends from Jan 1, 2025, in place of the previous Friday-Saturday arrangement.

“We’ve been waiting for this for years,” said Ms Chong, a travel industry executive who commutes daily to her office in Tanjong Pagar. The 33-year-old has worked in Singapore since 2012.

She explained that her 12-year-old used to attend school from Sunday to Thursday, while her two-year-old was cared for by her aunt.

Ms Chong and her husband work Mondays to Fridays, making Saturdays their only common day off.

“We had only one day together as a family,” said Ms Chong. “Now we no longer need to be tied up with the school timings.”

Johor changed its weekend to Friday and Saturday in 2014, in a mark of respect for Friday as the holy day for Muslims.

In October 2024, the state’s Regent, Tunku Ismail Sultan Ibrahim, announced that weekends would be changed back to Saturday and Sunday from Jan 1.

He said the decision took into account Johoreans’ desire for more family time and was in line with development projects that will benefit the state and its people.

Key economic projects in Johor include the Special Financial Zone based in Forest City and the upcoming Johor-Singapore Special Economic Zone (JSSEZ), an integrated zone for business and investment to ease the movement of people and goods across the two countries.

Families in Johor told The Straits Times, that the move gives a much-needed breather for working parents who had to put up with their children’s clashing weekend schedules.

Mr Patrick Teo, a property sales director and father of three, said: “This change is definitely welcomed. We plan to go to the beach because we finally have two full weekend days with the kids.”

At a highway rest stop near the North-South Expressway in Iskandar Puteri, Madam Nur Sakinah Mazlan, 35, was taking a break on her journey to her parent’s home in Kuala Lumpur with her husband and two children in tow.

“We were not able to do this before. The kids’ schedule would be too tight to accommodate a drive up north and back,” she told ST.

The move also helps streamline working arrangements between the public and private sectors, as well as between Malaysia’s 13 states.

Civil servant Abdul Rahman Mohammad, 40, who works at the Public Works Department (JKR) in Johor, said the change better aligns his agency’s dealings with the private sector and with its counterparts at headquarters in Kuala Lumpur.

Currently, only the northern states of Kedah, Kelantan and Terengganu observe Friday–Saturday weekends.

“I was previously working in Kuala Lumpur, so the move isn’t all that drastic. And I think it allows us to use our time more efficiently,” said the Terengganu native, who has been working in Johor since 2020.

Johor’s Menteri Besar, Datuk Onn Hafiz Ghazi, announced in Nov 2024 that with the weekend change, both the public and private sectors are required to give a two-hour break on Fridays so that their Muslim employees can perform their prayers.

Johor’s businesses are also adjusting to the new schedule, with restaurants serving office workers seeing a slight uptick in lunch and dinner sales on Jan 3, the first Friday of 2025.

Mr Mohd Khairil Kassim, who owns Rossco Cafe near the state’s legislative assembly in Iskandar Puteri, told ST there was a 15 per cent increase in lunch sales, with more civil servants in the offices nearby.

In Johor Bahru, hawker Fakratul Asyraf, 29, told ST his busy nights are now on Fridays and Saturdays.

“We struggled to cope on Friday, with customers waiting an hour for their orders. I’ve since called two more friends to help me,” he said.

South Johor Small and Medium Enterprises Association adviser Teh Kee Sin said 90 per cent of SMEs in the state had maintained Saturday-Sunday weekends for their workers even after 2014, in line with working hours in most states in Malaysia.

“I think with the JSSEZ agreement coming up, the new move would be beneficial for companies across the board,” he said.

• Harith Mustaffa is a journalist covering Malaysia for The Straits Times, with a focus on Johor.

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