3 ms·

They are already effectively outlawed in most of the EU. E.g. in Germany, you must be paid at least 50% of your current salary while the clause is active, for a

• tomp 5y ago
  If by “effectively outlawed” you mean “not effectively outlawed at all”, then yes, sure. How many people can survive for 2 years on 50% lower salary? In addition, the biggest impediment of non-competes is actually the inflexibility (“your job offer sounds amazing, I’ll start working in 18-24 months!”).
  • throwawayben 5y ago
    The point is that will very very rarely happen because how many companies are actually going to pay that much to stop you working at a competitor? And if they ARE willing to do it, then you probably held a very high status job there and so 50% will still be a lot.
  • Bayart 5y ago
    The assumption is that a job that would incentivize non-competes would be so well paid that 50% would still be comfortable, isn't it ?
    • tomp 5y ago
      From my experience working in finance in London, no. Good salary? Sure! Able to live comfortably with 50% salary (when rent is 30-50% of take-home pay)? Zero chance. In practice the biggest impediment to even longer non-competes is legal risk; the tiny chance of an employee challenging the non-compete in court and the court ruling unreasonable or overly broad, would result in all other employees knowing their non-competes are effectively void.
      • ATsch 5y ago
        Did you have to sign a non-compete for that job? Regardless of the exact reason for the impediment, it still remains that due to the restrictions, non-competes are not common enough in the EU to even be in the vocabulary of regular working people. I can't find any concrete numbers but it's definitely nowhere near the ridiculous 18% jobs that have them in the US. So it's pretty hard to argue the restrictions aren't effective.
  • ATsch 5y ago
    In practice these restrictions are big enough that non-competes are pretty rare except for key personnel with trade secrets and that the restrictions are reasonably narrow. I don't think I know anyone who has signed one. Of course it's still not great for those few people, but they're usually doing well enough as is. EDIT: I did some googling around and almost every resource referencing them talks about C-level executives and senior managers. So that should give you a rough idea of their prevalence.
  • absove 5y ago
    Isn't it the case that you can still work elsewhere in the meantime, just not for direct competitors? So you may get 70-80% of your previous salary working outside your more lucrative niche, but your previous employer still pays you 50% of your old salary to make up for it? Surely a non-compete can't be so broad that it forces you into unemployment.
  • marcosdumay 5y ago
    > How many people can survive for 2 years on 50% lower salary? You mean 50% of their previous salary plus a full salary working in a related field?
  • globalise83 5y ago
    Alternatively put: how many people would be willing to take a 2-year paid holiday on 50% of their current salary, with the option to work as many hours as they like in any non-competing industry in the interim? Sounds like it could be a pretty sweet deal if you found a good job for those two years.