I think this sort of clawback can indeed be acceptable as long as it's completely clear what you're getting involved in, is properly itemized in a way that repr

I think this sort of clawback can indeed be acceptable as long as it's completely clear what you're getting involved in, is properly itemized in a way that represents the real costs, and it only hold for a limited period that's proportional to the actual costs. My first employer told me how they once paid a very expensive (6 figure) training for someone who immediately left after finishing that training, so they introduced a clawback to prevent that in the future. I think that's reasonable, but there needs to be a balance. You shouldn't be able to lock people into shitty jobs for years just because they got some shitty training when they joined.