6 ms·
In Germany non-competes are legal but restricted by law as follows: - max 2 years - employer has to continue to pay at least 50% of the salary the employee la
by oezi 7y ago
In Germany non-competes are legal but restricted by law as follows:
- max 2 years
- employer has to continue to pay at least 50% of the salary the employee last earned for the duration of the non-compete.
- cannot non-compete minors
- must provide reasonable argument for the non-compete (hard for interns)
I think this is a good balance.
- walshemj 7y agoDo you work in HR? not sure max of 2 years is a Good Balance. Especially if you can stop some one after leaving there first low payed job to not work for 2 years on 50% of their starting salary - do you not see the potential to abuse young workers here
- oezi 7y agoThe 2 years is a good balance for highly skilled employees who carry competitive information such as customer contacts or technology. After that time the information is likely mostly worthless anyway. I agree that for interns the situation is not good but believe the "reasonable" provision is most likely to make a non-compete with an intern worthless in court.
- walshemj 7y agoYou do know that non competes are not for protecting trade secrets right? You wouldn't get a 2 year non compete for a FSTE 100 CEO in the UK to stand up in court. A
- mrfredward 7y agoNon-competes get abused so much in the states because the cost to companies is next to nothing when workers don't push back. I don't think companies would go around giving everyone two-year non-competes if it meant they had to pay an extra year's salary to everyone who quits.
- VBprogrammer 7y agoI always assumed a non-compete would be unenforceable in Europe because I don't see how it can fit within the European convention on Human rights.
- scarejunba 7y agoIn California, non-competes are generally not allowed. Never expected us to be better than Germany in workers’ rights.
- Rexxar 7y agoAllowed if correctly compensated seems better to me than just forbidden.
- thanatos_dem 7y agoIt’s a bit more messy than that in California even. Non competes are not forbidden, just generally unenforceable due to some other labor laws. So a lot of companies will still to this day have employees sign non-competes, and threaten them with legal action if they violate them. They’d almost certainly lose, depending on circumstances, but the threat is enough to have a pretty strong chilling effect.
- scarejunba 7y agoWell, I wouldn't take half my pay to not work. This is prime career time. The losses are huge? I could be compounding my income by working. 50% is an embarrassing amount. I'd accept 100% maybe.
- ChuckNorris89 7y agoIANL but AFAIK, they have to pay 50% if they chose to enforce the non compete, i.e. you want to work for a direct competitor in the exact same field but now you can't. Otherwise they don't have to pay anything and you are free to work on whatever else you like.
- aaomidi 7y agoWhich is fine. It puts some monetary cost on the employer as well. It's a fair system we should adopt everywhere.
- saagarjha 7y ago50% is…not great.
- m0zg 7y agoGetting paid 50% of my peak salary for just sitting on my ass and doing nothing sounds great to me. I'd go for it. Move to Spain for a couple of years, pursue my hobbies, stuff like that.
- TomVDB 7y agoIt's great for some specific cases, but it's not great if you have fixed costs to pay.
- m0zg 7y agoI'm sure one can find a job outside their field for 50% less money which doesn't trigger the non-compete, if that's the case. Though, TBH, I'd like the comp to be 100% of the offer I'd be forced to forego. I.e. I go interview somewhere, negotiate an offer with them, and if my previous employer feels very strongly about me not working there, they can pay me 100% of the total package to not work there. That's the only set-up that'd be truly "fair" to the former employee, IMO.