It's really simple. If you want to enforce a non-compete you have to pay* the employee gardening leave for its duration. Enforcing a non-compete when you've la

It's really simple. If you want to enforce a non-compete you have to pay* the employee gardening leave for its duration. Enforcing a non-compete when you've laid someone off is utterly indefensible and anyone who does this deserves to go bankrupt fast. Usually when forced to pay employers discover ruining an employees career isn't actually worth anything much to them and don't enforce. But if it's free it's a great lesson to current employees - we'll go after you if you want to leave so no you're not getting a raise. *pay the maximum of the employees salary including any bonuses vs market rate, where the market rate calculation has to be defended by the employer in court and can be retrospectively re-applied. With the usual obvious basis of "the employee had offers for $x" etc.