If a wolf and a sheep are having a discussion over what to eat, is letting the wolf eat only 1 or 2 legs a nice balance because both sides are unhappy?

Should one side be made happy when they have an unreasonable ask?

If companies do not want you to work for competitors, they should be paying your salary for that time. Employees still lose out on things like keeping their skills sharp through work, or career growth, but they are at least getting compensated for the job

I think you're missing the point: it is a ban.

When poliicians pass laws though, there are often unintended consequences. Good politicians will intentionally create loopholes out of humility, realizing that they don't understand the entire issue and how it will affect everyone.

If the loopholes are too big, then thr policy will be ineffective and they will either need to tighten the loophole later, or scrap the whole policy as unworkable.

Do you think the ban is ineffective? Are there hordes of unhappy German citizens drawing 60% of their salary because they are unable to find better work without violating the non-compete? And tons of greedy companies making zillions of euros by paying people to not work?

>it is a ban

It literally is not a ban since it is allowed, and for less than the full compensation the employee would receive by working.

I am not discussing the efficacy as I haven't seen any numbers on how many non-competes are in effect in Germany. I am discussing the ethics of it

I am making a practical argument and you are making an ethical/moral argument of it.

But for your argument to be complete I think you need at least some example of someone doing something unethical or wrong because of the policy. The policy exists today so hypothetical arguments fall a bit flat.

To illistrate my point, consider that it is legal (as far as I can tell -- not a lawyer) to walk around in California with a sword as long as it's neither concealed nor being brandished. But it doesn't make sense to argue that the lack of a law against carrying a sword is unethical because of what people might do. Theoretically people might do horrible things while carrying a sword; but empirically they do not, because few people even have swords, fewer still walk around with them, and approximately zero deaths result from it.

There are people on non competes that are not being compensated with the full salary they would have been getting. To me that is unethical.

It is not a hypothetical situation, unless you are trying to claim that no company anywhere is using a non compete, in which case I just need to pull up the associated paperwork for pretty much every offer letter I've gotten. Alternatively I can go and poll just my social circle and compile the list of non competes.

Anything less than the full salary is unethical to me, and I'm partial to arguments that it should be more as the employee under the non compete is losing out on career growth and raises

> There are people on non competes that are not being compensated with the full salary they would have been getting. To me that is unethical.

They are also making that money while doing nothing.

They are not making money while doing nothing. They are making money by not using their knowledge, so that their previous employer can prevent other entrants into their market from benefiting from said employees skills.

Well, it practically serves the prupose of limiting the actual use of non-competes. So it does serve the purpose pretty well IMHO. Enforcing those in Germany is really difficult by the way.

It doesn't serve the purpose of actually compensating people, but it is much better than America's free for all