A 7am start in Manila puts your team member at their desk as a nine o'clock office opens on Australia's east coast. Manila is two hours behind Brisbane every day of the year, two hours behind Sydney and Melbourne until the clocks move in October and three after that, and level with Perth. You share most of your working day rather than handing work over overnight. What you do not get free is the early morning or the night — those are a shift you agree and pay for, so settle your start time, and what happens in October, before day one.
Manila is two hours behind Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne, and three hours behind Sydney and Melbourne for the half of the year Australian daylight saving is running. Brisbane never moves. That is close enough that an offshore team member shares your working day rather than handing off to it, which is a different arrangement entirely from the follow-the-sun picture the word offshore usually brings to mind.
This is the practical version: where the shift starts, what it covers in each capital, which hours you will not get, and what changes in October.
The arithmetic, and the one number that moves
The Philippines runs on UTC+8 and does not observe daylight saving. Manila's clock reads the same in August as it does in January, so everything that moves in this relationship moves on your side of it.
Australian eastern standard time is UTC+10, which puts Manila two hours behind Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Hobart and Canberra. Western Australia is UTC+8, the same as Manila, with no offset at all. South Australia and the Northern Territory sit on a half-hour offset at UTC+9:30, so Manila is ninety minutes behind them.
Then daylight saving moves five of those jurisdictions and none of the others. New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania and the ACT each set their own daylight saving period under their own state or territory legislation, and in practice all five currently run it from the first Sunday in October to the first Sunday in April. That puts the next two changeovers on 4 October 2026 and 4 April 2027. Queensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory do not move at all.
Set against a 7am to 4pm shift in Manila, which is the usual starting point for an Australian brief, the day looks like this.
| Your city | Manila is behind by | A 7am to 4pm Manila shift covers |
|---|---|---|
| Perth | Nothing, all year | 7am to 4pm |
| Brisbane and the Gold Coast | 2 hours, all year | 9am to 6pm |
| Darwin | 90 minutes, all year | 8.30am to 5.30pm |
| Sydney, Melbourne, Hobart, Canberra | 2 hours April to October, 3 hours October to April | 9am to 6pm, then 10am to 7pm |
| Adelaide | 90 minutes April to October, two and a half hours October to April | 8.30am to 5.30pm, then 9.30am to 6.30pm |
Perth is the outlier: no offset to manage, no overlap window to calculate, no changeover to renegotiate. Queensland is the next best thing, because the two-hour gap is the same fifty-two weeks a year.
Why a Manila nine-to-five is the wrong shape
A full-time day in the Philippines is nine hours at the desk for eight hours of work, because Article 85 of the Philippine Labor Code requires not less than sixty minutes off for regular meals, subject to the narrow exceptions Philippine regulations allow. So a nine-to-five is really 9am to 6pm.
Run that on Manila's own clock and it lands at 11am to 8pm in Brisbane, and midday to 9pm in Sydney over summer. Your morning goes uncovered, and the morning is when the email arrives, the phone rings and the shape of the day gets decided. You have hired someone who starts as you break for lunch.
Which is why it is rarely the arrangement anyone settles on. A 7am Manila start has your team member at their desk as a nine o'clock office opens in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne through winter, and an hour into your morning in the southern summer. They work through your business day and finish an hour or two after you would normally hand anything over. Their lunch hour, at noon their time, falls at 2pm in Brisbane and 3pm in a Sydney summer. Worth knowing before you wonder why nothing moved between two and three.
What the overlap buys, and the hours you do not get
Most of a working day genuinely shared is not a compromise. It is the same person, in the same tools, able to ask a question and get an answer in the same hour rather than the next one.
What you do not get, in eastern Australia, is the early morning. A 7am call in Brisbane is 5am in Manila and an 8am start is 6am. In a Sydney or Melbourne summer both are an hour earlier again. All of them are possible, all of them are shift work, and all of them should be quoted and agreed rather than assumed. If your business genuinely begins at 6am, say so on the first call.
The other end of the day is easier than people expect. Someone finishing at 4pm Manila covers you to 6pm in Brisbane and 7pm in Melbourne over summer, which is when quotes get finished, tomorrow gets confirmed and customers who have been at work all day finally get around to complaining.
Handover, when there is barely a gap to hand over
With a two-hour offset there is no overnight. Nothing happened in your business while they were asleep, because you were asleep too. That makes handover the wrong word. What you have is two moments in the day worth being deliberate about.
The first is the top of their shift, which in Brisbane is your 9am and their 7am. For the first fortnight that should be a fifteen-minute call where you look at real work and say plainly what is wrong with it. Our onboarding guide sets that fortnight out day by day, and calls the daily fifteen minutes the highest-value thing you will do in it.
The second is the end of their shift. A short written note at 4pm Manila reaches you at 6pm Brisbane, while you are still working, which means you can redirect tomorrow before tomorrow starts. Three lines is enough: what got done, what is stuck, what is planned next. Longer notes tend to stop getting written.
The October problem, and how to settle it before day one
On the first Sunday in October, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Hobart and Canberra move an hour further from Manila and stay there until April. If you have not agreed what happens, the 9am start you carefully arranged becomes a 10am start, and someone spends the first fortnight of spring quietly annoyed about it.
There are two honest options. Either your team member moves their start by an hour in October, so 7am becomes 6am and your overlap stays where it was, or you accept the later window for six months and plan around it. Both work. Only one of them can be decided in October.
Settle it in the brief. A start time is somebody's working hours, and shifts get agreed with the team member before they begin rather than announced at them afterwards. It is also worth asking whether the wider summer gap is a problem at all. Melbourne businesses selling online often prefer it, because a 6pm Manila finish reaches 9pm at home, which is when people shop.
What follow-the-sun actually costs
Two hours is not a night shift, and no amount of clever scheduling turns it into one. If you want your evening or your night covered, you are buying a shift, not a time zone, and it should be priced that way. Article 86 of the Philippine Labor Code requires a night shift differential of not less than ten per cent of the regular wage for each hour worked between 10pm and 6am, so late hours cost more, as they should.
The coordination cost is the part businesses underestimate. Decisions wait a cycle instead of an hour, and the quickest way to lose the value of an offshore hire is to put a queue where a quick question used to be. If you need your nights covered, that cost is worth paying. If it merely sounds efficient, it is not.
There is also a calendar you do not share. Philippine public holidays are set in law and the year's list is issued by proclamation, and they do not line up with yours, so days like Maundy Thursday and All Saints' Day land on your ordinary working days, while Australia Day and Anzac Day land on theirs. Map both calendars in the first month rather than discovering the clash the week before. Leave and cover sit on our side; the FAQ sets out how.
None of this is why offshore hires fail. The clock gets blamed far more often than it deserves. When a placement goes wrong it is more often a process that only ever existed in someone's head, or a first fortnight nobody turned up to, and we have set out the five real causes separately.
This is general information, not legal or financial advice. Workplace rules change and your obligations depend on your circumstances, so take advice on anything specific to your business.
What to do next
Three decisions give you a workable day. Pick the Manila start time that covers the part of your day that actually matters, which for a standard business day is 7am. Decide now what happens in October and write it into the brief. Book the daily fifteen minutes for the first fortnight before anyone starts.
We will do the arithmetic for your city and your hours on the call, including awkward ones like a 6am site start or an evening support window. The rest of the process is on how it works, or book a discovery call and we will map a day against your clock.
How we would staff a 7am Manila start
Everything above is a scheduling decision, and scheduling decisions are cheap to make in the brief and expensive to fix in month three. What we would put in place here is one full-time administration assistant on a 7am to 4pm Manila shift, hired by us on your behalf and working inside your inbox, your phone line and your job files across the main part of your business day. From A$14 per hour plus GST, roughly two weeks from brief to first day, an initial three month contract and then month to month.
- Starts at 7am Manila, which is 9am in Brisbane all year and 9am in Sydney and Melbourne outside daylight saving, so the main phone line, the enquiries inbox and the first decisions of the day are covered from the moment your office opens.
- Works the back end of your day. 4pm in Manila is 6pm in Brisbane and 7pm in a Melbourne summer, when quotes get finished, tomorrow gets confirmed and the customer who has been at work all day finally calls.
- Writes a three line end of shift note — done, stuck, next — timed to land while you are still at your desk, so you can redirect tomorrow before tomorrow starts.
- Takes their meal break at noon Manila, which is 2pm in Brisbane and 3pm in a Sydney summer, marked in your shared calendar so nobody wonders why nothing moved for an hour.
- Keeps both holiday calendars in one view, Philippine and Australian, and flags the clashes a fortnight ahead rather than the week they happen.
- Your fifteen minutes a day for the first fortnight, at the top of their shift. We can book it in the calendar; only you can turn up to it and say plainly what is wrong with the work.
- The October decision, if you are in a daylight saving state. Either the start moves to 6am Manila and your overlap holds, or you accept a 10am to 7pm window for six months. Make the call in the brief and we will agree it with the team member before they begin, not after.
- Deciding which hours actually matter to your business. If you genuinely open at 6am or need an evening support window, say so on the first call, because that is a shift to be quoted rather than an offset to be exploited.
- Answering during the overlap. A two hour gap only pays if a question asked at 10am gets an answer at 10am. Queue the replies for tomorrow and you have bought a shared day and thrown away the point of it.
Frequently asked questions
Can my Philippines-based assistant start at 6am Australian time?
Do Filipino staff work on Australian public holidays?
Will my offshore team member work overnight while I sleep?
Does hiring across a time zone cost more per hour?
Do I have to change my own working hours to manage someone in Manila?
Can a Philippines-based team member work weekends?
- Labor Code of the Philippines (Presidential Decree No. 442, as amended), Articles 83, 85, 86 and 91 — The nine-hour Manila day for eight hours of work, the ten per cent night shift differential between 10pm and 6am, and the rest day after six consecutive working days
- Department of Labor and Employment (Philippines), Handbook on Workers' Statutory Monetary Benefits — The night shift differential, meal period and rest day rules in plain-language administrative form
- Administrative Code of 1987 (Executive Order No. 292) (Philippines), Book I, Chapter 7, s 26, as amended by Republic Act No. 9492 and Republic Act No. 9849, read with the annual presidential holiday proclamation — Philippine public holidays being fixed in law, with the year's list issued by proclamation
- State and territory daylight saving legislation: Standard Time Act 1987 (NSW); Summer Time Act 1972 (Vic); Daylight Saving Act 1971 (SA); Daylight Saving Act 2007 (Tas); Daylight Saving (Summer Time) Act 1972 (ACT) — Which jurisdictions move their clocks, that each does so under its own instrument, and that Queensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory do not
- IANA Time Zone Database (Asia/Manila, Australia/Perth, Australia/Brisbane, Australia/Darwin, Australia/Adelaide, Australia/Sydney) — The standard offsets behind the table: Manila at UTC+8 year-round, two hours behind eastern standard time, ninety minutes behind central, level with Perth
Alfie is a natural facilitator with a passion for building meaningful relationships. A true people person, he thrives on creating genuine connections and bringing people and businesses together, and he excels at fostering collaboration and teamwork. At StaffingSolutions.io he is usually the first person you speak to: he maps the role, writes the brief the recruiters work from, and stays on the account long after the placement.
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