In practice, noncompetes are rare, because noone wants to pay for someone who quit (or got fired). I personally know only one person with a current non compete

In practice, noncompetes are rare, because noone wants to pay for someone who quit (or got fired). I personally know only one person with a current non compete, he worked at some niche company, that paid a few tens of thousands of euros for specialization in one specific niche branch and one specific software. He can still work in the same industry, just not with that specific software, and he got 75% of his previous paycheck for (i think) 18 months (the length of the noncompete) + of course the current paycheck he earns in a similar industry (with obviously a different software solution). The noncompetes are usually a case of having to invest a lot to educate a worker in the first place (again, niche stuff). General stuff (like a php programmer) would never get a noncompete, because the courses are cheap, anyone can learn that themself, and the monthly payouts are more expensive than udemy courses. On the other hand, there is some abuse, where people get employed, especially in the public sector, to get the expensive (cisco, redhat, microsoft,...) certificates paid by the employer and then quit and do freelance work.