comment: >
  
  Is there a timeline for when this could take effect?
context: “Noncompetes block workers from freely switching jobs, depriving them of higher wages and better working conditions, and depriving businesses of a talent pool that they need to build and expand,” Ms. Khan said in a statement announcing the proposal. “By ending this practice, the F.T.C.’s proposed rule would promote greater dynamism, innovation and healthy competition.” >
  
  How tf is this even legal in the first place? >
  
  Because they are supposed to be for high level or super important jobs. Where the person has to much insider knowledge to just jump ship to a competitor. >
  
  Wouldn't the solution there just be to pay them competitively so they don't leave? >
  
  Originally the point was to prevent poaching employees with inside knowledge that they would take to competitors. Even with high salaries, if a company knows an employee has info worth 500k+, they can offer that much even if the average salary for the position is only 100k. The original company can't realistically have all employees at 500k to prevent leaks because companies will still outbid any offer for the info far greater than 1 years salary. >
  
  You can still be bound by an NDA regarding insider trade secrets without a non-compete. >
  
  Sure but how do you do a job based on knowledge work while pretending you don't know things? >
  
  That's not what it is. A non-compete keeps a software developer from moving from Apple to Android development for example, even though nothing about the code for Apple products would even function on a Android device they might write for at the new job. It'd be like if a journalist couldn't go work at another newspaper because they knew how to write even if they were moving from politics beat to sportswriting... Companies literally just don't want competition as a concept. It's as simple as that. Nothing a capitalist hates more than open competition. Competition hurts capital gains. >
  
  In some rare circumstances I can see a businesses argument, but still it’s not a good argument other than to protect their own business. If you work in sales somewhere and then a competitor wants to hire you, there’s a good chance clients/customers may leave also to follow you if you have a good relationship going.
  And I could see in some cases where it protects a smaller company from a bigger/richer company forcing out competition by just paying everyone more than smaller businesses can pay, but that already happens anyway. >
  
  I have a noncompete agreement at my current job, but it only applies to direct competitors and if the company chooses to enforce it I get 70% of my pay for two years just to not work there.  Seems like a pretty fair way to do it. >
  
  Good. Imagine your boss thinking he can control where you work after you leave, it's insanity. >
  
  Lots of them are already completely unenforceable.  They say stuff like “anything you invent while salaried here is our intellectual property”.  And stuff like that is already illegal in my state but its still in contracts as a scare tactic. >
  
  This gives me hope. My job is driving me crazy but all I do is come home and study more of my industry cause it’s all I got right now. I am worried anything I produce is theirs. I realize now that’s quite insane. >
  
  You should definitely check with your local law. If you take company specific knowledge on a product and use that to develop a competing product, there’s a real chance you would be violating a non-compete. 
  Most non-competes aren’t enforceable because they are written very broad and most people don’t actually change jobs to compete in the specific manner where the clause might be upheld. 
  All depends on your industry, what your company actually does/produces in that industry, and if what you might develop is a direct result of confidential company specific knowledge.
  Note: not a lawyer, and obviously laws can and do vary greatly on this. >
  
  Yes, trust me I have developed nothing, and I will not make any moves until speaking with a competent attorney. >
  
  Exactly what someone taking the advice of a competent lawyer would say! >
  
  First, you pay them. Then they say a bunch of stuff you know you can’t even grasp, and suddenly you’re handing over thousands! Bastards! >
  
  I thought they weren't enforceable anyway. Don't get me wrong; I believe businesses use them as an intimidation tactic and that should be ended. >
  
  They're a scare tactic to prevent labor with sparticular skills from starting their own business and competing directly with the former employer by stealing clients.
  Think a physical therapist opening a clinic next door to the one they quit.
  It's not enforceable, but they can sure as fuck bleed you out trying to enforce it. >
  
  If it's "not enforceable" then why would the FTC be coming up with this rule? >
  
  Because the threat of litigation is still enough to change people's behavior. If I'm a low level salaried worker, going to a competitor for a level up is a great way to grow my career but the idea my former employer would entangle me in a lawsuit is enough to keep me from considering such a job especially if I can't afford good lawyers. >
  
  It's also a reason for a new employer to not want you, at least not immediately. >
  
  This. I was asked at my current employer if I had a non-compete. I lucked out, and it was broad enough that they didn't think it was enforceable and would represent me if I was sued by my former employer. >
  
  It's a very, very standard question in many of the automated application software used by larger companies. >
  
  This is such a big deal. My wife is a physician and companies use this to hold a death grip on people. People have to uproot their entire lives just to get better opportunities. Never saw this coming! >
  
  Its a very big problem in software as well. >
  
  My tiny company tried to ban me from working with any technology and any company in any industry worldwide they might do work in. I just ignored it. It's too broad and I'm in Oregon. >
  
  I recall one of my first contracts tried to claim ownership of any and all software I wrote off the clock on my own free time.  I crossed out that entire section on the contract, initialed it and let them know that while I appreciate the opportunity that was a non starter.  In the end they dropped it.
  Its insane what people try to get away with in the software world. >
  
  I do the same in software.
  I let them know I'm more than willing to give up IP/ownership claims for off the clock if they're willing to pay a quarter of a million a year for that privilege.  Funny they never seem to take me up on that. >
  
  
  In a far-reaching move that could raise wages and increase competition among businesses, the Federal Trade Commission on Thursday unveiled a rule that would block companies from limiting their employees’ ability to work for a rival.
  The proposed rule would ban provisions of labor contracts known as noncompete agreements, which prevent workers from leaving for a competitor or starting a competing business for months or years after their employment, often within a certain geographic area. The agreements have applied to workers as varied as sandwich makers, hair stylists, doctors and software engineers.
  Studies show that noncompetes, which appear to directly affect roughly 20 percent to 45 percent of private-sector U.S. workers, hold down pay because job switching is one of the more reliable ways of securing a raise. Many economists believe they help explain why pay for middle-income workers has stagnated in recent decades.
  Other studies show that noncompetes protect established companies from start-ups, reducing competition within industries. The arrangements may also harm productivity by making it hard for companies to hire workers who best fit their needs.
  The F.T.C. proposal is the latest in a series of aggressive and sometimes unorthodox moves to rein in the power of large companies under the agency’s chair, Lina Khan.
  “Noncompetes block workers from freely switching jobs, depriving them of higher wages and better working conditions, and depriving businesses of a talent pool that they need to build and expand,” Ms. Khan said in a statement announcing the proposal. “By ending this practice, the F.T.C.’s proposed rule would promote greater dynamism, innovation and healthy competition.”
  The public will be allowed to submit comments on the proposal for 60 days, at which point the agency will move to make it final. An F.T.C. document said the rule would take effect 180 days after the final version is published, but experts said that it could face legal challenges.
  The agency estimated that the rule could increase wages by nearly $300 billion a year across the economy. Evan Starr, an economist at the University of Maryland who has studied noncompetes, said that was a plausible wage increase following their elimination.
  Dr. Starr said noncompetes appeared to lower wages both for workers directly covered by them and for other workers, partly by making the hiring process more costly for employers, who must spend time figuring out whom they can hire and whom they can’t.
  He pointed to research showing that wages tended to be higher in states that restrict noncompetes. One study found that wages for newly hired tech workers in Hawaii increased by about 4 percent after the state banned noncompetes for those workers. In Oregon, where new noncompetes became unenforceable for low-wage workers in 2008, the change appeared to raise the wages of hourly workers by 2 to 3 percent.
  While noncompetes appear to be more common among more highly paid and more educated workers, many companies have used them for low-wage hourly workers and even interns.
  About half of states significantly constrain the use of noncompetes, and a small number have deemed them largely unenforceable, including California.
  But even in such states, companies often include noncompetes in employment contracts, and many workers in these states report turning down job offers partly as a result of the provisions, suggesting that these state regulations may have limited effects. Many workers in those states are not necessarily aware that the provisions are unenforceable, experts say.
  “Research shows that employers’ use of noncompetes to restrict workers’ mobility significantly suppresses workers’ wages — even for those not subject to noncompetes, or subject to noncompetes that are unenforceable under state law,” Elizabeth Wilkins, the director of the F.T.C.’s office of policy planning, said in a statement.
  The commission’s proposal appears to address this issue by requiring employers to withdraw existing noncompetes and to inform workers that they no longer apply. The proposal would also make it illegal for an employer to enter into a noncompete with a worker or to try to do so, or to suggest that a worker is bound by a noncompete when he or she is not.
  The proposal covers not just employees but independent contractors, interns, volunteers and other workers.
  Defenders of noncompetes argue that employees are free to turn down a job if they want to preserve their ability to join another company, or that they can bargain for higher pay in return for accepting the restriction. Proponents also argue that noncompetes make employers more likely to invest in training and to share sensitive information with workers, which they might withhold if they feared that a worker might quickly leave.
  At least one study has found that greater enforcement of noncompetes leads to an increase in job creation by start-ups, though some of its conclusions are at odds with other research.
  Dr. Starr said that noncompetes did appear to encourage businesses to invest more in training, but that there was little evidence that most employees entered into them voluntarily or that they were able to bargain over them. One study found that only 10 percent of workers sought to bargain for concessions in return for signing a noncompete. About one-third became aware of the noncompete only after accepting a job offer.
  In a video call with reporters on Wednesday, Ms. Khan said that she believed the F.T.C. had clear authority to issue the rule, noting that federal law empowers the agency to prohibit “unfair methods of competition.”
  But Kristen Limarzi, a partner at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher who previously served as a senior official in the antitrust division of the Justice Department, said she believed such a rule could be vulnerable to a legal challenge. Opponents would probably argue that the relevant federal statute is too vague to guide the agency in putting forth a rule banning noncompetes, she said, and that the evidence the agency has on their effects is still too limited to support a rule.
  At the helm of the F.T.C. since last year, Ms. Khan has tried to use the agency’s authority in untested ways to limit the power and influence of corporate giants. In doing so, she and her allies hope to reverse a turn in recent decades toward more conservative antitrust law — a shift that they say enabled runaway concentration, limited options for consumers and squeezed small businesses.
  Ms. Khan has brought lawsuits in recent months to block Meta, Facebook’s parent, from buying a virtual reality start-up and Microsoft from buying the video game publisher Activision Blizzard. Both cases employ less common legal arguments that are likely to face heavy scrutiny from courts. But Ms. Khan has indicated she is willing to lose cases if the agency ends up taking more risks.
  Ms. Khan and her counterpart at the Justice Department’s antitrust division, Jonathan Kanter, have also said they want to increase the focus of the nation’s antitrust agencies on empowering workers. Last year, the Justice Department successfully blocked Penguin Random House from buying Simon & Schuster using the argument that the deal would lower compensation for authors.
  One question looming over the discussion of noncompetes is what effect banning them may have on prices during a period of high inflation, given that limiting noncompetes tends to raise wages.
  But the experience of the past two years, when rates of quitting and job-hopping have been unusually high, suggests that noncompetes may not currently be as big an obstacle to worker mobility as they have traditionally been. Partly as a result, banning them may not have much of a short-term impact on wages.
  Instead, some economists say, the more pronounced effect of a ban may come in the intermediate and long term, once the job market softens and workers no longer have as much leverage. At that point, noncompetes could begin to weigh more heavily on job switching and wages again.
  “Doing something like this is a way to help sustain the increase in worker power over last couple of years,” said Heidi Shierholz, president of the liberal Economic Policy Institute, who was chief economist at the Labor Department during the Obama administration. >
  
  I'm a doctor and my contract (as well as most other doctors' I know) had a noncompete, which is just absurd.  Medical knowledge is not some trade secret. They just want to scare you away from leaving by putting some nonsense about having to uproot your family and move 50 miles away. >
  
  It's about losing patients (money), if patients decide to follow you to the new system.  Also a physician. Looking forward to seeing this terrible contract clause go away. >
  
  My wife had to deal with a noncompete prior to starting her own business. Her employers caught wind of what she was working on and tried to buy a stake in it. When she politely declined, they immediately went to an attorney to change the terms of their noncompete to include services they didn't even offer solely to prevent her from opening in any capacity. She got the fuck out of there before any of this could be fully realized by her scumbag employers, but it was WAY sooner than we had planned for her to leave and it was a huge financial burden to us (she was pregnant with our second at the time, to give you an idea lol). 
  Ultimately we're incredibly lucky to be privileged enough to start a business, so I certainly won't complain. But we racked up a ton of debt that we'll be paying off for years all because we couldn't afford to get tangled up in a potential lawsuit (even though a family member who practices law told us we could easily countersue for workplace retaliation, it just was not worth it). So yeah, sorry for the rant but fuck noncompete clauses. They are completely antithetical to a free market economy. >
  
  Banning non competes is what made California the innovation capital of the world. This can't happen soon enough >
  
  I have outright refused to sign any noncompete at both jobs that has “demanded” it. Both times, HR and management tried to convince me that it was a prerequisite for my employment. I told them if that was true, they should fire me and find someone else. Both jobs dropped the issue, and I never signed the noncompetes. Turned out that they weren’t necessarily required. >
  
  supreme court has entered the chat >
  
  Given the current makeup of the Supreme Court, I imagine they'll somehow issue a business-friendly ruling that not only protects non-competes but outright bans Americans from leaving any jobs without the express, written consent of the National Football League. >
  
  This is especially asinine in an at will state. >
  
  In conjunction, the NLRB needs to declare that anyone who is under a non-compete agreement must continue to be paid their full-time salary while it is in effect. >
  
  I’ve been waiting for this. As a physician I just got laid off with no notice and without cause 5 days ago. Because of my non-compete I’ll likely have to uproot and move elsewhere to restart over again which sucks. This is long overdue and looking forward to this to be implemented. >
  
  How can you be bound to a non-compete when YOU were laid off by the company? Isn't that the company saying "Go wherever the hell you want, you're expendable to us." >
  
  Nope. It’s called a contract and companies/hospitals do whatever they can to keep their money [patients] and that means not allowing a physician to work within a certain radius of where they were previously employed. >
  
  But if they lay you off, and are no longer paying you, they have effectively terminated the contract. 
  I can't see any way a company could choose to terminate you and then simultaneously argue you shouldn't work elsewhere. >
  
  There are clauses that hold true even after termination of a contract unless there’s cause. Most contract lawyers just say “this is the industry standard” meaning you can’t really negotiate them out. Legal stuff sucks. >
  
  Sounds to me you should be talking to a labor attorney. If you are limited to working at one company and that company lets you go, I don't see how they can simultaneously argue you working elsewhere would cause them harm.
  Unless they're still paying you to sit out? >
  
  Non-competes are a joke >
  
  A huge win for workers >
  
  They should strike down non-compete while maintaining the protective nature of trade secrets IP. >
  
  We love to see it! Break that concentrated wealth >
  
  This has prevented me more than once from getting a better paying job. I aced the interview only to be told later we can't hire you because you work for X. I found out that the company I worked for was willing to let me go but wanted the new employer to pay them $25K to waive the non-compete.
  It is even worse in a smaller market. It was basically a one industry town and everyone provided support to that industry so there was nobody that you could move to there. >
  
  100% support this. Non-compete agreements are BS. If you work in a highly specialized field they can restrict you being able to get a job anywhere until the timer runs out on it. So instead of quitting a job and then hoping right into a new position, like normal, you're forced to sit on your hands for 3, 6, or 12 months while you wait for your NCA to expire. That entire time you're burning your emergency fund, or working fast food to make ends meat when you could be productive and doing the thing you are highly trained to do. NCA's for non-skilled labor should be criminal right out the bat. What skills and critical information are they protecting? The best way to spread mayo!? Absolute BS. >
  
  I had to wait out a 2-year non compete. It’s a completely bullshit scam perpetuated on workers >
  
  This would be great. 
  In healthcare non-competes are abused by employers to make it impossible to leave your current job. 
  “Oh you want to leave and open your own practice or go work at a different hospital?  Then you better move 20 miles away from any of our hospitals, affiliates or satellite offices…which means you better move to a different state bc we have satellite offices everywhere” >
  
  Please let this happen. Hoping some states will take it upon themselves to codify for permanence because we all know our rights are one nutty SCOTUS ruling away from being rolled back. >
  
  About damn time. >
  
  That’s why when I leave I don’t tell people where I’m going when I get a new job, you never know how vindictive people can be >
  
  Courts generally disfavor enforcing these anyway. Looking forward to having them done away with. >
  
  Next let’s do pre-employment drug screens. >
  
  Noncompetes might make sense at high end senior level positions if they even make any sense there anyways. Companies use them for menial shit to prevent workers from getting ahead. Here's a great example: PetSmart will pay for you to learn how to become a dog groomer and then force you to sign a noncompete, and rope you in to years of shitty wages in an unforgiving work environment. Companies use it to exploit workers more than workers use it to exploit companies. >
  
  Good fuck that shit. Maybe companies who are shit will actually start competing themselves instead of hiding behind legal horse shit >
  
  Now ban pre-emptive individual binding arbitration whenever a company is dealing with a person (i.e., business-to-business dealings would be excluded). It's clear companies do it to avoid liability at the expense of people they harm, so it falls within scope of the FTC. >
  
  This deserves way more attention than it’s getting. So many bosses threaten employees with non-compete agreements. Sending cease and desist letters to former employees when they find out they’re working somewhere else.  Petty bosses flexing their power and money with lawyers. It must end! >
  
  This might sound like a weird question, but how would this affect professional wrestling.
  They're considered independent contractors even though for the most part they have exclusive deals with the places that they work for. 
  If a wrestler in WWE was let go, their contract says they're not allowed to work for another place for 90 days.
  Would this affect them? >
  
  I hope so >
  
  Good.  I am stuck in one currently, within a niche industry.  They suck. >
  
  I remember when working for EA they tried a 'cannot work in this industry for a minimum of 1 year after employment', which obviously sent up some red flags; had a lawyer look it over and they told me that unless I was to go to a direct competitor, working on a near identical product, there wasnt a chance in hell of them enforcing it. >
  
  Good it’s about time!
  Also from my experience, 2 different jobs the employers asked me to sign an non compete, and I declined and said I’d have to rescind the acceptance of the job offer it was mandatory. They let it go, I took the job, and these are the last 2 out of 3 employers I’ve had in a 15 year career.
  I don’t get why this whole thing turned from executive level positions signing non competes to every one from the janitorial staff, IT, HR, etc then being expected to sign an Non compete. >
  
  Funny how this suddenly became an issue during a massive labor shortage, especially in specialized areas. >
  
  THIS IS GREAT! I have lost out on job offers from competitors for more money due to fear of the non-compete my new employer slapped on me after a buyout. >
  
  I had an employer pull this shit on me. After 3 years of working there they suddenly sprang it on me. I had to agree to not work for any of our clients or competitors. For me meant that I can't work for anyone who'd want to hire me and the agreement would never be enforceable. I worked in a niche field at the time. These motherfuckers forced me to sign it or lose my job even after I point blank told them I'd ignore it and force them to sue me. >
  
  Yeah, some states already ban them, others ban them under a certain salary range, it's a whole patchwork of crap. Glad it's being settled for the whole country. >
  
  I turned down a job offer for an outsourced IT company when I was younger because they wanted me to sign a non-compete agreement preventing me from doing IT work for ANY business within 100 miles for 2 years if I quit.  I literally would have had to move if I lost that job or quit.  I'm not sure how enforceable that really would have been, but I decided to turn down the job because of it. >
  
  We need to keep punching left with things like this >
  
  During the 2007/08 recession the company I worked at laid off a bunch engineers (100s). In order to receive the severance package you had to sign a non compete that prohibited you working in a similar industry for a year. 
  I truly believe the person(s) who decided on the non compete was a sociopath. How fucked up to fire someone, them prohibit them from working somewhere else. >
  
  Welcome to 150 years ago, rest of the country. >
  
  They're already illegal in California, fortunately.