I think unreasonable non competes could be prevented by requiring a company to match high end of market compensation (not just salary) + say 20% for the period of the non compete.
It would “work” for many jobs, via making the non compete clause totally economically unviable. Some holes for tech job moves with promotion (sometimes significantly more than 20% jumps), and sometimes middle managers (promotions to different companies can sometimes be much much larger for no apparent reason).
The issue for the worker is that the “high end” of their current position may not be near the median of the next position they want to move to.
For employers, there would be very very very few jobs where this was worth it. Which still might be “better” for them than a California style blanket ban on non compete.
> Some holes for tech job moves with promotion (sometimes significantly more than 20% jumps), and sometimes middle managers (promotions to different companies can sometimes be much much larger for no apparent reason).
The whole point of my market value comment was that if you can get an offer for $X total comp, then if your employer wants to enforce your non-compete, they would have to pay you a 20% (or whatever) premium on that. For the vast majority of employees companies would just stop having non-competes. For higher level employees it might even reduce the amount of stupid "I can get a better raise by switching company" cycle that currently exists.
For executive level folk in CA that is functionally how it works already
> Which still might be “better” for them than a California style blanket ban on non compete.
To my knowledge, companies in CA have the option to counter their former employee's offer from another company. If Company A really doesn't want their employee to work at Company B, they can offer them a fair amount of money to not work for a year.
I think that would be a fair middle ground that doesn't require non-competes.
They already have that - telling you current employer you're going to leave due to a better offer gives them the opportunity to provide a counter.
That's not a law, and doesn't need to be (I'm not even sure how you would make a law in which a company could not offer a raise to prevent you from leaving?). The alternative would be that you were legally required to accept an offer once it was made, which seems to be even more absurd than a non-compete.
Considering you will not be able to exercise your skills in your profession, and that skills rot, even a "paid year-long vacation" is not a good deal for the employee.
