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non-compete agreement prevalence?

 
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The most popular weapon on this front is the “non-compete” agreement, which prevents employees leaving a firm from working for a rival for a fixed period (usually up to two years but as many as five in Italy) or setting up a competing business. These were once mainly confined to the upper ranks of knowledgeintensive firms. Now they are ubiquitous: about 90% of managerial and technical employees in America have signed them.


from The Economist

Is this true. When I see resumes, they are typically from people who hoped from one bank to another to another. (I work for a bank). I know people sign non-disclosures, but that is different.

I'm wondering if other industries do have non-competes. Or certain parts of the country. Or the statistic isn't correct.
 
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They're common in UK freelance contracts where as a freelancer working through an agency you're not supposed to work for the same client directly or via another agency for e.g. 6 months after the end of your current contract. I've also seen similar conditions on moving e.g. from a software house to a client of that software house, although that's usually aimed at stopping poaching of staff.

I've never heard of one of these clauses being enforced here in the UK, and I suspect a court might take a dim view of an unreasonable restriction on somebody's ability to earn a living. It would depend on the legal system, of course, but if somebody wanted to limit my employment opportunities for 5 years, I think my response would be "Show me the money!".
 
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In my current employment, the client has multiple vendors. The interpretation of the non compete agreement in this case would be I should not work with a different vendor + same client project. However, I can work with a different vendor but on a different project . Needless to say I am not a lawyer and I do not know of anyone or any incident first hand where this has been put to test in a court of law. However I do know of people who have done the above and everyone (original employer, new employer, client) was OK with it.
 
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Well, in New York State (which is relevant to the OP), non-compete clauses are very difficult to enforce. Arguably, almost impossible to enforce, even to the point that having them in a contract can void the whole contract.

I remember when my former company tried to enforce changes by making everyone sign a contract with a very broad non-compete clause, the whole office was in an uproar. I just figured that it wasn't enforceable and just signed it. And sure enough, I guess that they figure it out too -- as about a year later, they informed everyone that the new contract has been voided.

Henry
 
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Non-competes are common in the areas Chris and Maneesh mention (temp/freelance folks hired through an agency, and client/vendor relationships); I wasn't aware that they're becoming more common for "regular" employees in the US (apart from top-level managers, that is). The major issue is enforceability, which can be tricky as those clauses are frequently phrased too broadly, and thus deemed to infringe on personal rights to choose employment. Apparently the rules around that vary between US states as much as between countries in Europe: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-compete_clause. (And yes, it's a completely separate issue from NDAs, which everybody has to sign.)
 
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Henry Wong wrote:Well, in New York State (which is relevant to the OP)


Not so much, I'm just interested in general. Doesn't apply to me personally; I wasn't asked to sign one.

And thanks all.
 
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Ulf Dittmer wrote: . . . those clauses are frequently phrased too broadly, and thus deemed to infringe on personal rights to choose employment. . . .

A six‑month non‑compete as Chris mentioned earlier would be much easier to enforce than a 5‑year agreement.

Enforcement is difficult to achieve or to test; neither the employee nor the company would like to risk the expense and poor publicity arising from a lawsuit.
 
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