At JJ, it was more about operational secrets that can't be protected by law. However, I mentioned in my original post that I don't necessarily think it's right

At JJ, it was more about operational secrets that can't be protected by law. However, I mentioned in my original post that I don't necessarily think it's right or wrong, it's just why JJ does it. I generally agree with you that limiting future employment is generally not a good thing, although I'm not convinced getting rid of non-competes in minimum wage jobs would materially affect wages. At most, it might prevent someone from taking a manager position at Subway, but I don't think it is going to raise the overall wages of restaurant workers.