US Bans Noncompete Agreements For Nearly All Jobs 113
The Federal Trade Commission narrowly voted Tuesday to ban nearly all noncompetes, employment agreements that typically prevent workers from joining competing businesses or launching ones of their own. From a report: The FTC received more than 26,000 public comments in the months leading up to the vote. Chair Lina Khan referenced on Tuesday some of the stories she had heard from workers. "We heard from employees who, because of noncompetes, were stuck in abusive workplaces," she said. "One person noted when an employer merged with an organization whose religious principles conflicted with their own, a noncompete kept the worker locked in place and unable to freely switch to a job that didn't conflict with their religious practices." These accounts, she said, "pointed to the basic reality of how robbing people of their economic liberty also robs them of all sorts of other freedoms."
The FTC estimates about 30 million people, or one in five American workers, from minimum wage earners to CEOs, are bound by noncompetes. It says the policy change could lead to increased wages totaling nearly $300 billion per year by encouraging people to swap jobs freely. The ban, which will take effect later this year, carves out an exception for existing noncompetes that companies have given their senior executives, on the grounds that these agreements are more likely to have been negotiated. The FTC says employers should not enforce other existing noncompete agreements.
The FTC estimates about 30 million people, or one in five American workers, from minimum wage earners to CEOs, are bound by noncompetes. It says the policy change could lead to increased wages totaling nearly $300 billion per year by encouraging people to swap jobs freely. The ban, which will take effect later this year, carves out an exception for existing noncompetes that companies have given their senior executives, on the grounds that these agreements are more likely to have been negotiated. The FTC says employers should not enforce other existing noncompete agreements.
20%? (Score:2)
"The FTC estimates about 30 million people, or one in five American workers, from minimum wage earners to CEOs, are bound by noncompetes"
Somehow that seems like a vast overestimation
Re:20%? (Score:5, Insightful)
You underestimate how common abusive clauses are in employment contracts. From blanket intellectual property assignments (even stuff done on personal time) to unpaid noncompete periods after termination, these are distressingly common.
This. (Score:5, Interesting)
It doesn't have to be legally enforceable it just has to be a threat to someone who's in a weak position.
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That's not going to change then.
Re:This. (Score:5, Insightful)
Not quite: Unenforcable and illegal are two very distinct states.
One requires the victim to have some knowledge of the law and in that case, the perp just shrugs. Worth a try.
An outright illegal clause will have HR and legal teams sweat bullets (which is the state you as a decent human being always want legal and HR to be in) because if that EVER comes out, the lawsuit will be glorious.
Anyhow, this is a good step and one I never thought the US was capable of. I am part of a facebook group about a chronic disease and the existential fear and anxiety the mostly American people there have is heart breaking... Not only do they have to cope with their sickness, they have to constantly hide it, too. And since that particular disease is anxiety triggered, I would like to equate that existence to a state of hell on earth.
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Distinction without meaning for the purpose of this discussion. There are rights that aren't being enforced right now. Adding a little bit more right in the same vein will not change the status quo.
One of my favorite working moments (Score:2)
The HR rep (an absolutely enormous woman) came darting out to catch him in the parking lot. Never knew someone that heavy could move that fast. He had his job back that moment and the firing manager was reprimanded.
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That's not going to change then.
Unenforceable means if you do not show up to court to defend your winning position, the judge must issue a default judgement that blanketly assumes the other side is correct.
Illegal means if you do not show up, the judge can not accept the claims in the first place to make a default judgement on.
If you can't afford to defend yourself or afford the time to go to court to defend you, this ruling now changes the default result.
This is a huge win.
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It doesn't have to be legally enforceable it just has to be a threat to someone who's in a weak position.
And that should be considered a different type of crime unrelated to employment. A threat is a threat. And we DO have crimes against that. Threatening employment is about the most direct form of harm short of physical violence.
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They'd say it is a civil matter.
You can file a grievance or lawsuit over someone making legal threats, But proving bad faith or malicious intent and damages sufficient to justify the lawsuit becomes problematic.
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Re: This. (Score:1)
Fast food workers donâ(TM)t have non compete unless youâ(TM)re thinking about executives and managers in the fast food business. You cannot both have âoeat willâ and âoeunder contractâ. A contract cannot be one sided, it makes it void, legal in these companies know that, they would be an easy target for class action. Non compete allow employees to negotiate higher wages and exit packages, if you are in agreement, you do so for a reason.
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Given that most fast food stores are franchises, and that there's ~200k such stores in the USA, I would absolutely NOT put it past a fraction of them being asshole enough to attempt to do this, in order to keep their employees from quitting and seeking greener pastures elsewhere.
Somebody posted that Texas has "at will" employment, IE is "right to work", but that non-competes could be legal there. It read more like an opinion though.
https://www.texasnoncompetelaw... [texasnoncompetelaw.com]
"Supported by valid consideration (ie. som
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I don't give much validity to those websites that claim that the law applies equally to everyone. It's just attorneys looking to fleece you.
Fast food franchises have contracts and legal agreements pushed down from corporate. It's not like your a McD has a separate contract than the one down the street, precisely because the brand and corporate is the one in trouble when things go south legally.
My main problem here is that people that have never been in a courtroom argue about these things as if they're simp
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I think that I wasn't quite clear enough - I'm not saying that they actually take the employees to court. This is the equivalent of threatening a lawsuit. Which many $25k employees would be terrified of even though, as you mention, they're effectively judgement proof.
The idea isn't to sue, it's to keep them from quitting their shitty job for a slightly less shitty one down the street.
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Threatening unsubstantiated claims is grounds enough for a lawsuit from an ambulance chaser. You're making it seem like people on minimum wage are dumb and have no agency. You can try it once or twice, but at some point you're going to hit someone who doesn't care, doesn't listen and proves to the rest of the employees that the threats are empty, worse, they'll complain to corporate and get the manager fired.
Most people know a modicum of their rights, especially at the lower end, many people end up stealing
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You're making it seem like people on minimum wage are dumb and have no agency.
Not my intent, though obviously the normal minimum wage worker has a minimal amount of agency, and a number of them are indeed dumb. Otherwise they wouldn't be a minimum wage worker. In addition, even much better paid workers still have limited agency.
but at some point you're going to hit someone who doesn't care, doesn't listen and proves to the rest of the employees that the threats are empty, worse, they'll complain to corporate and get the manager fired.
1. We'd be talking about "franchise owner", not the manager.
2. When I was a minimum wage employee working at a franchise and elsewhere, I didn't have easy access to "corporate".
3. If they quit, unless they're associates outside of work as well, the inform
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Again, a single case, sure, but not as a mainstream thing that happens.
Well, duh, why do you think I said "a fraction of them"? IE the occasional one here and there. Were you thinking I was considering this to be some sort of universal policy? Rather than a shitty boss here and there doing it?
These days McD and WalMart are doing everything to keep their managers happy, their workers happy because it is hard to get good workers, especially given the minimum wage hikes, they are looking at much more experienced people than just a college job. Everyone in places like NY and CA now are 5-10 years experienced adults, you can't just bully them into submission.
And this is not a bad thing, on the balance. I like employers always being at least a little hungry for workers. And Chick-fil-a led the charge on discovering that better paid workers are generally better workers, and the productivity boost more than pays for the extra pay.
As for "se
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You underestimate how common abusive clauses are in employment contracts. From blanket intellectual property assignments (even stuff done on personal time) to unpaid noncompete periods
Yes.. You got the right word there, abusive. They are abusive, and Ought to be prevented - for the same reason we Forbid retailers from doing certain things, such as putting one price on an item, and then charging a higher price at the point of sale. We don't allow retailers to stick you with fine print on the receip
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I got handed an employment contract once containing a clause on how the company owned all intellectual property I create. It was so broadly worded that they basically claimed everything I coded at work or in my spare time, regardless of whether it had anything to do with their core business or not and whether I had written it for a personal project.
Same, at multiple jobs. Many aspects of it are entirely unenforceable but depend on what the law says at the time a suit is filed, and it's still a threat to contend with. One even openly stated that they put in as much as they can legally get away with, whether or not it's enforceable, and that they would enforce as much as they legally can if needed. Basically, they don't know how far a judge will let them push things, so push it all the way and let the judge pull the reigns back... if it even comes to th
Re:20%? (Score:5, Insightful)
Somehow that seems like a vast overestimation
Absolutely not. Every single employer I've had anything to do with since the early 2000's has required some kind of non-compete, including very small shops. I suspect it's the same for every "knowledge" worker.
I predict this will die a violent death in US courts. Every AG in every red state will be in one or more big zoom meetings by the end of the week preparing to kill this with fire. Don't expect this to be real for years, if ever. They're lining up the judges and injunctions right now. This is fucking with signed contracts and that isn't something that happens in the US without a public law voted on by a legislature, war powers or similar caliber maneuver.
Many of the great names in computing, both hardware and software, were started by motivated refugees from larger outfits, striking out on their own to pursue some market their employer failed to see. If there is an underestimate in any of this it's the positive impact it would have on opportunities for individuals. Just don't bank on it happening: if you make any actual decisions that put you at odds with some document you signed, understand that 10 years from now some corporate lawyer won't hesitate to wreck your world if this is all just an election year legal fiction.
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It is funny how you think that it is the red states that will kill this. Noncompetes are already not enforceable in many right-to-work states. It's the blue states where noncompete clauses had weight.
Re:20%? (Score:4, Informative)
See California, largest state in the union, setting the precedent. Colorado followed. Blue states.
And again, these were legislative acts.
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Yes, it took specific legislation to ban them in blue states. However, "right to work" laws, as present in red states, already banned them, just not explicitly, more "your employment contract cannot bind you after you cease working for that employer".
IE, what I've seen a couple times, they have to keep the employee "employed' for the non-compete period, including paying them.
Re:20%? (Score:4, Interesting)
IANAL. However, I suspect that conflating right-to-work and non-compete is naïve. Union law is from an entirely different legal foundation, and even age, than IP based non-compete contracts. A trivial attempt to find legal views on this corroborates my suspicion:
Non-Competes: Myths, Misconceptions & Lies [clousebrown.com]
1) Non-competes are unenforceable in “right-to-work” states like Texas. FALSE
Right-to-work laws govern whether employment may be conditioned on an employee’s union membership, or lack thereof. Although a “right-to-work” may sound like it implies that all employees have a guaranteed privilege to freely seek work and be employed, this phrase is actually unrelated to non-competition laws (which allow reasonable limitations on an employee’s traditionally unrestrained mobility in our free market). Completely distinct from the enforceability of non-competes, right-to-work laws protect employees from being denied employment because they are members in a union (or because they choose not to be members or make payments to a union). Thus, the notion of employees having a “right-to-work” is strictly limited to protecting an employee’s right to participate, or choose not to participate, in a labor union or organization by prohibiting such choice from affecting the employee’s “right” to employment. Because the notion of right-to-work is completely unrelated to non-compete limitations, non-competes are still enforceable in right-to-work states like Texas.
So, unless you are a lawyer, take a breath and accept that perhaps you aren't qualified for this guesswork.
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California banned non-competes in 1874 when they were a solidly Republican state.
Re:20%? (Score:5, Informative)
At that time, the Republican party had not yet become completely corrupted, unlike today.
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non-compete agreements until now ...
California: not enforceable
Massachusetts: enforceable
Recently I read an article that venture capital firms [even those based in Boston] would not fund a startup based in Massachusetts because of its non-compete. They would say (e.g.) "Base the company in New York ..."
Maybe one reason why Silicon Valley is 10x the size of the the Rte 128 belt ... [Also, maybe the weather :-)]
The draconian good ole days ... https://opencasebook.org/caseb... [opencasebook.org]
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It's the blue states where noncompete clauses had weight.
Like California... oh wait.
How about you get up off your blindly partisan arse and actually learn something for once.
Here's an actual breakdown of noncompetes by state:
https://www.sixfifty.com/resou... [sixfifty.com]
A few states ban them completely. A few more have wage thresholds, and most have some sort of "reasonableness" requirement, though for Alabama, that's 2 years so it's pretty weak.
California protects 3 times the number of people from non competes as ALL t
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The rubes in those states eat that shit up.
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Every AG in every red state will be in one or more big zoom meetings by the end of the week preparing to kill this with fire.
Yep. Thus helping the blue states to maintain their dominance in technology work.
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I predict this will die a violent death in US courts.
Much doubt about that one I would say. Not unless they are prepared to and can prove Non-Competes prevented by the rule cannot be considered Unfair under Competition/Antitrust law and the FTC act in the US. I would eagerly await their Proof that these agreements are actually reasonably necessary to secure a justifiable legitimate pro-competitive objective that's within the public interest. If There is an alternative available, and the companies d
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Noncompetes are not much very well liked by the courts when employers try to use them.
True. Also, irrelevant. "The process is the punishment." Non-competes provide the standing an employer needs to bury a former employee in costs. Costs that are incurred, whether the employers case falls flat on its face or not. And not just legal bills.
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Non-competes provide the standing an employer needs to bury a former employee in costs. Costs that are incurred, whether the employers case falls flat on its face or not.
Eh? I thought you were trying to argue the FCC's regulation of non-Competes would fail challenges.
But instead you're going on to explain how no-competes incur costs on the competition over cases without legal basis which supports the FTC position that no-competes are an unfair business practice. Undergoing an insincere legal exchange f
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Eh? I thought you were trying to argue the FCC's regulation of non-Competes would fail challenges.
Nothing I've said contradicts that. You are failing to employ sufficient cynicism.
Yes, the new rules will be challenged, and those challenges will take years, and could prevail. Yes, non-compete cases frequently don't make and are generally unwelcome. Yes, that doesn't really matter because the goal is achieved in any case.
Undergoing an insincere legal exchange ... is unlawful
If you are aware of any form of legal action less likely to succeed than proving an attorney was insincere, please enlighten me: I have failed to think of any. This is not something
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For the majority of people if the company ever tried to exercise them would be laughed out of court because they break state law.
To many company put the non-competes in standard hiring paperwork and have never had it check against the local laws.
Re:20%? (Score:4, Insightful)
Non-compete clauses create a bind, be them enforceable or not.
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If their former employer sues them even on base of non-enforceable non-compete clauses, they still have to lawyer-up
they don't have to sue.. They'll likely send a Cease and Decist to the new employer who may not consider the merits and simply terminate their new hire. This is the likely outcome if it's a $20/hr worker. The lawyer time is way too expensive, and the new employer can hire somebody else.
The abuser can paper a ton of letters over the mere worry and break the employee without ever filing
Re: 20%? (Score:1)
You have never worked in management I see. The cost of legislation is much higher in most of these issues, even illegitimate claims are settled because they are expensive and sufficient attorneys will work pro bono because they know the process is significantly in favor of the employee (there are always more slighted employees than there are employers).
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Nearly every employer I've had since the late 90s has required me to sign a non-compete. First time was in 1996 after a wrote a tiny software program to help banks calculate credit insurance, for like $100, something only tangentially related to my job at the time and not our usual customers. My employer came to me a week later in a panic, as if I was stealing money from him, demanding I sign a non-compete or quit.
Re: 20%? (Score:1)
Then why didnâ(TM)t you negotiate a raise or quit?
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Yeah, cuz jobs are easy to find when you're a disabled guy who can only work from his bed.
You sound like a Libertarian.
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Then why don't you sue, plenty of country lawyers looking for a pay day on easy claims like "forcing disabled person to extend contract without compensation". You won't get much (1 year pay or so), but it will cost the company 5-10x that.
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Ah, I just explained that I had to take what job I could get, yet you pretend not to hear me.
Just the usual asshole Libertarian response.
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Or perhaps, you feel sorry for yourself and think that you have to take whatever you could get. The fact is, if you ever worked your way up, that finding good talent is hard, it is a lot easier to please a squeaky wheel than to fire and rehire, especially when that squeaky wheel has a protected government status like disabled or gay or female or old or black or hispanic.
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You sound like a real gem.
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You think?
Tell me one good reason why I would not put such a clause in a burger flipper job contract to ensure my burger flipper will think twice before bailing from the horrible boss I am, knowing he will never flip a burger again if he does, and he already has a non-compete from his time at Target.
There are only so many no-skill jobs in a town, and once you're barred from all of them by ridiculous non-compete clauses, you have to stay with that last one that gang-pressed you into indentured service, becau
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I don't say this often, because it is rarely justified, but kudos to the USA (the FTC) for doing something good for it's citizens.
About time (Score:5, Insightful)
This is excellent news. There was a small space where non-compete agreements made sense. Predictably, people with money and power abused the living crap out of legislation intended to protect those few instances, and they've been getting away with it for years.
There will be a few cases that need to be hashed out in court, and those can be dealt with. Mostly, vampires who suck the life blood out of innovators will be forced to stick with whatever they got before their victims got fed up and left.
Don't get too excited (Score:2)
The thing is, at least with non-competes it was clear what your obligation was. The new front in the war on employee rights is around 'trade secrets'. It used to be that the line for this was anything you could not memorise - so you can't take copies of code, or lists of customers, but anything you can remember (e.g. a way you solved a coding problem, or names of customers you could remember) was fair game. But there has been an erosion of this and a move towards companies 'owning' knowledge in your head.
Th
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I agree here. I've never had to sign a non-compete, but I have had to sign many NDAs, and when I left GE they made me sign this document stating that I may have worked on materials covered under NDA without either me (or them!) knowing it was covered under an NDA and the same for their trade secrets. They wanted to do all kinds of asinie things like patent the way piping is laid out on a process skid and stuff like that. I laughed at HR, signed the stuff and was happy to leave the place.
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How can someone make you sign a document when you quit? I would laugh them out of the room.
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Probably a condition for severance agreeements. In general you should Not sign new agreements on the way out, unless there is a benefit tied to the agreement. That benefit can't be your Pay for time and benefits already earned by working though. They might make you sign to pay out an Exit bonus, or cash out some other benefit.
It's worth pointing out that last year in 2023, the NLRB banned the use of broad NDAs and No-disparagement agreements As a condition for severance contracts, as vi
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Any severance agreement beyond the most basic "we are paying you not to sue us for wrongful termination" should be met with a response of "Let me have my attorney look this over and get back to you." (whether you have a lawyer look it over or just take some time to read it before you sign it is not the point -asserting your rights is the point.)
If they try to pressure you int signing with a "the offer is only valid NOW" kind of a deal - DO NOT SIGN. It is a trap. You have the legal right to seek counsel f
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Probably a condition for severance agreeements. In general you should Not sign new agreements on the way out, unless there is a benefit tied to the agreement. That benefit can't be your Pay for time and benefits already earned by working though. They might make you sign to pay out an Exit bonus, or cash out some other benefit.
It's worth pointing out that last year in 2023, the NLRB banned the use of broad NDAs and No-disparagement agreements As a condition for severance contracts, as violating employee rights.
This was over a decade ago for me, so before these changes. Large and abusive companies have ways of ignoring the laws, however. They like to remind you that their pockets are deep in comparison to yours.
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How can someone make you sign a document when you quit? I would laugh them out of the room.
Through threats, which is kind of their MO. They will tell you, explicitly, that you will do this or that thing or they will take you to court over it. They also tell you, explicitly, that it doesn't matter whether they lose their case, you will go broke first.
Why do you think I left? :)
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Thanks for that. I had no idea this was going on.
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Do not get too excited just yet. Any future R led Congress or presidency will roll back this regulation. It is merely a regulation and not backed by any law that I can see.
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Any future R led Congress or presidency will roll back this regulation
They'd have to put a law through first, and it's not clear they would.
The FTC has only 1 commissioner whose 7 year term is ending before 2029.
wow (Score:3)
starbucks and amazon will take this to USSC just l (Score:2)
starbucks and amazon will take this to USSC just like they are with the NLRA
Re:starbucks and amazon will take this to USSC jus (Score:4, Interesting)
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Neither Alito nor Thomas will retire. You'll have to hope they both have convenient heart attacks on vacation just like Scalia.
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Polls seem to indicate that Trump will win again. Biden is nearly unelectable at this point.
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I have it on good authority that the President could just order Seal Team Six to assassinate them and face no consequences...
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A "Yea" from the court would effectively enshrine political assassinations of any one dumb enough to try question the ruling party.
A "Nay" from the court would effectively enshrine an independent as the next president who doesn't even appear on every state's ballot. (Assuming we don't wind up with another trail of tears problem....)
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Chamber of Commerce has already got the ball rolling on that. [bsky.app]
The first court will kill this off. (Score:1)
The only thing that could possibly be stupider and worse is if they went and made the existing contracts void.
that said states do need to implement laws preventing them from being allowed except on people making 4-5x average salar
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Probably so. It would (and probably should) require an act of Congress to invalidate so many contracts all at once.
How it should work (Score:3)
This puts a tiny little bit of power back in the hands of employees. If you disagree with how your employer operates or treats employees, you should not be afraid to quit because you can't go to work in a related field, exactly the places that are likely to hire you next.
1980s Under Reagan (Score:1)
Excellent (Score:3)
No problem with this whatsoever. It's just the flip side of at-will employment, which I also have no problem with.
Good! (Score:2)
I hope this survives the inevitable court challenges. Non-competes for other than owners or very senior executives are simply indefensible.
Little anecdote: I used to own a software company here in Canada. I didn't impose any sort of non-compete clause on employees. I sold my company to one from the United States, and they attempted to impose a non-compete clause on all the employees.
Every technical employee found another job and quit. Every. Single. One. (And one of them to a direct competitor as a
Re: Good! (Score:2)
I think non-competes should be allowed, with the express provision that said company wanting to enforce one should continue to pay the employee the salary they were paying them while the person no longer has any other obligations to them i.e. you can agree to a non-compete as long as there is adequate ongoing compensations at your previous salary level (including bonuses). The non-compete would need to be limited to other companies in the same industry as the previous employer as well. It would also be time
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I'd agree to that, but the salary would have to be updated annually indexed to inflation.
Let's compromise (Score:2)
Im happy for a non-compete with the following compromise.
1. You pay my full salary for the duration of the non-compete.
2. The salary increases 7% annually.
3. You restrict the non-compete to a narrow industry.
Otherwise, the risk exposure is too large for me.
Trade secrets and intellectual are still protected (Score:2)
In Estonia... (Score:2)
Devulging proprietary info is still illegal, free of charge
Let’s bet (Score:1)
Here we go again with the central planning (Score:1)
One of the great ironies of our time is how government apparatchiks implement rule after rule to constrain the evils of capitalism, and wind up creating more capitalists in the process. How many times do we need to learn the lesson that a dynamic, adaptive system can't be centrally controlled? You can't stop water from flowing, but you can channel it. If you're smart, you'll channel it to your benefit.
Non-competes are part of the employer's incentive package. In return for keeping this or that secret, they
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Take non-competes away, and business will respond by binding potential employees in even more creatively onerous ways.
This has not happened in Ontario, where I live, where non-competes have been banned since 2021.
Didn't go far enough (Score:2)
This should have come from Congress (Score:2)
I agree that non-competes are bad, but decisions like this are what the elected are supposed to vote on.
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It's precisely why we have specific and dedicated agencies to making rules and regulations for more specific things than congress should be bothered with. FCC, FDA, FTC, etc. If you want everything to go through congress, then what is even the point of the rest of the agencies?
They keep Biden's name out of their mouth (Score:2)
...when it's a happy announcement for most people. Biden fans on social media are pointing out "Two big Biden deliveries for the working class, same day: overtime pay required, and non-competes forbidden. Of course, the MEDIA ignore it."
The sniffiness would be more annoying if they weren't basically correct. The FTA is "Biden's FTA", much, much, much more than the DOJ is "Biden's DOJ" because of independence traditions that Biden respects. Neither change for workers would have occurred under any Re
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Good. Competition is good.
Re:Finally! (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed. Both employees and companies do better in jurisdictions that ban non-competes.
Employees do better for obvious reasons since they can hop to better jobs.
It is not as obvious for companies, but they benefit from more freedom to hire, ideas and innovation spreading faster, and more satisfied employees.
Non-competes are a prisoner's dilemma [wikipedia.org]. An individual company benefits from a non-compete but is harmed even more when other companies do the same. They are collectively better off if none of them do it. But the only way to enforce that, is a legal ban.
The FTC finally did something I agree with. That hasn't happened in a long time.
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Non-competes are a prisoner's dilemma [wikipedia.org]. An individual company benefits from a non-compete but is harmed even more when other companies do the same. They are collectively better off if none of them do it. But the only way to enforce that, is a legal ban.
Tragedy of the commons. People are short-sighted, greedy and stupid and CEOs are decidedly not an exception.
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on the other hand, companies may be less willing to hire someone with no experience and train them knowing that investment can be lost at a whim to a larger company with greater financail resources.
I do see how this will benifit people with your experience, though.
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ROTFLMAO!!!!!
"Hire someone without experience"? "Train them"? I think I've worked for two companies in nearly 40 years that did *any* training. They want to hire you as a bottom level, but want 3-5 years experience. All of 'em.
Surely there are some folks, actual nerds, who still read slashdot who remember the ads for someone with five years experience in python... three years after 1.0 was officially released.
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When you leave you can pay off the remaining pro ratio cost of that training, with some luck your new employer will reimburse you.
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They didn't ban non-disclosure contracts. Might make more legal work for them, but at least now you can leave toxic work environments.
There are gonna be more start-ups to harvest (Score:1)
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Not really. This law has an exception for "senior executives" making more than $151,000 a year:
https://www.ftc.gov/news-event... [ftc.gov]
Most of senior engineers that folks like Apple, Google, and Tesla are actually poaching will make far more than that.
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