Resistance to Noncompete Agreements Is a Win for Workers

Re:Resistance to Noncompete Agreements Is a Win for Workers by bradleyjg on Sunday May 19, 2019 @02:55PM (#19954797)

There are trade-offs here even if looked at purely from the worker's point of view. While it is probably strictly superior from that POV to have the exact same job with the exact same terms except without a non-compete, the inability to commit to a non-compete means that the equilibrium is shifted and the exact same job with the exact same terms likely wouldn't have existed in the first place.

Perhaps on the balance laws against non-competes are a good idea, but we should always be wary of claims of a free lunch.

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Re:Resistance to Noncompete Agreements Is a Win for Workers by freewilly1040 on Sunday May 19, 2019 @04:14PM (#19955239)

Noncompetes are a free lunch, for employers. They get to suppress wages at no cost to them.

As for them being necessary for certain jobs to exist, I’ll believe it when I see it. Different states are governed by different laws, so if it does happen examples shouldn’t be hard to find.

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Re:Resistance to Noncompete Agreements Is a Win for Workers by baronswindle on Sunday May 19, 2019 @03:04PM (#19954836)

This is a great point. Non-compete agreements reduce risk of losing otherwise unprotected information to a competitor and probably increase retention of valuable employees. So preventing employers from using these agreements would increase risk and turnover, and employers might (read: probably would) decrease offered compensation in response.

Now, this effect might be dwarfed by the upward pressure on compensation caused by greater availability of alternative jobs for employees, but it’s not obvious to me that would be the case. I’d be interested to see some empirical studies on the subject.

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Re:Resistance to Noncompete Agreements Is a Win for Workers by lovich on Sunday May 19, 2019 @04:24PM (#19955295)

I disagree with the assumption here that employers are offering increased compensation. When it's standard practice to have non competes _and_ they take years to be out of effect then you don't get competition that would require increased compensation for employees.

At this point even if a competitor jumped in and offered no non competes for the same wage, it wouldn't matter as no one can work for them. The mechanisms of capitalism require little to no barriers to entry and industry wide practices like non competes add large barriers which prevent the normal supply and demand mechanisms

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