Surely an employer can attach a dollar amount to the harm caused to them by a former employer competing with them and compensate said former employee accordingly.
You can be sure if they took you to court for breech of contract for competing with them that they'd have it, because that's what they'd be asking for damages.
This happens sometimes with valuable people; the person's new employer essentially buys out their contract by hiring them anyway and then settles, paying the original company for the value lost.
How is that not the most fair? Everybody gets compensated, whereas without non-compete the original company would just get screwed over with no recourse.
Because most people are not "valuable people", nor are they your security clearance person doing useless work for a year while they wait for their clearance to go through. They get hired to work a process, and if they leave it's to work a process somewhere else. We're long past the days of Mr. Fezziiwig training his young apprentices to possibly take over the business when he retires.
Besides, companies try very hard to make their employees believe they are replaceable cogs, so what is even the purpose of non-competes if that is so? If they are replaceable, then how can harm be done by them leaving to work for someone else? If harm is done, then why the charade of making them think they're replaceable cogs?
Then maybe employers should have only used them for the handful of employees where they would actually be beneficial instead of making them a standard term of employment for everyone.
Instead they abused the concept so much they made it so the government said they don't get to use it anymore. Hard to feel much pity about that.
Surely an employer can attach a dollar amount to the harm caused to them by a former employer competing with them and compensate said former employee accordingly.
You can be sure if they took you to court for breech of contract for competing with them that they'd have it, because that's what they'd be asking for damages.
This happens sometimes with valuable people; the person's new employer essentially buys out their contract by hiring them anyway and then settles, paying the original company for the value lost.
How is that not the most fair? Everybody gets compensated, whereas without non-compete the original company would just get screwed over with no recourse.
Because most people are not "valuable people", nor are they your security clearance person doing useless work for a year while they wait for their clearance to go through. They get hired to work a process, and if they leave it's to work a process somewhere else. We're long past the days of Mr. Fezziiwig training his young apprentices to possibly take over the business when he retires.
Besides, companies try very hard to make their employees believe they are replaceable cogs, so what is even the purpose of non-competes if that is so? If they are replaceable, then how can harm be done by them leaving to work for someone else? If harm is done, then why the charade of making them think they're replaceable cogs?
The answer to your questions here is that sometimes non-compete is a good thing and sometimes it's abusive.
That's why the answer isn't a blanket ban on them.
Then maybe employers should have only used them for the handful of employees where they would actually be beneficial instead of making them a standard term of employment for everyone.
Instead they abused the concept so much they made it so the government said they don't get to use it anymore. Hard to feel much pity about that.
I think the difference is if the abusive to non abusive was 50:50 then it would be kinda fine, but it’s more like 90:10.
"How is that not the most fair" is because trade secrets, working knowledge of current projects, NDA violations, etc.