Oh God yes. Yes they would indeed.
What if it was the employer that taught you the niche field? They hired you, and then sent you through six months of training to learn the field. During this time, you are producing very little of value, but you are being paid.
Then, when you finish the training and are ready to be productive with your new niche knowledge, you get poached by their competitor--a competitor who can pay higher wages because it isn't spending tens of thousands of dollars on training for new employees.
It seems to me that there should be some way for the employer to protect against the above scenario. What would be acceptable instead of a noncompete?
Some ideas:
1. A noncompete that runs from the START of employment instead of from the END of employment. If training takes six months, the noncompete would say you cannot work for a competitor for 18 months after start of employment.
2. Charge for training, with payment due in monthly installments starting at the end of training. The company waives payment for each month that the employee continues working for them. The employee can leave for a competitor at any time, but will then be responsible for making the remaining payments for his training.
If a more durable arrangement is desired, so the employee cannot leave tomorrow with no notice (thereby giving up the normal freedom to work only willingly for employers, and leave when it is no longer willing), then IMO it should be set out in advance and honored by both sides, e.g. by using a fixed-term or minimum-term contract, with penalties for early termination by either side. That way both sides can plan on the stability of the relationship (barring serious misconduct).
For example in my current job, either my employer or myself can terminate the employment with four months notice, after the first six months. This gives us both some guarantee that we will be able to plan for major changes— they will have time to find a replacement if I give notice, and I'll have time to find another job if they give notice.
Obviously, training benefits can be abused. "Here is a 'benefit' that is not really a 'benefit' but instead a job requirement for which we have assigned a nearly arbitrary value; if you leave within 12 months, you must pay us this random number back." But as long as "training" has some value assigned by the market with a reference price not controlled by the employer, what's the problem?
Employers always have to pay for experience. You either pay more for an experienced employee or pay for training.
With an experienced employee you can include actual benefits, like you mentioned, or you can pay to train someone who will take a lower salary.
It's uncomfortably close to indentured servitude to me to say: you can't work for anyone else until you pay off this up-front investment we made in you (working only for us until you do).
What does the contract specify as a remedy for the company if you quit early?
I guess enforcing noncompete is just easier than NDA because it might be very hard, if not impossible, to prove disclosure. I understand noncompetes for executives, etc. People who could seriously harm their employer with their knowledge (client list, etc) if transferred to a competitor.
But yes, applying noncompete to every employee regardless of the position is a bit silly.
Why should the government protect companies from their competitors?
Don't be silly: of course they would. Do you think they don't think they own you?
We already have an extensive infrastructure in place to protect the intellectual property and trade secrets of companies, including NDAs and those clauses assigning ownership of anything you produce to your employer. But the idea that companies can overstep this bound and place restrictions on how you can use your brain and your general knowledge to produce new, creative work that has only a secondary or tertiary relation to their IP is utterly vile.
If the technology existed to erase memories from brains, would these employers insist in their employment clauses that employees who resign must have any professional knowledge acquired on the job erased from existence? This is almost the same thing. If you are an engineer in a niche field, in particular, being barred from that field for a year or more is tantamount to rendering your professional knowledge obsolete.