[baronswindle]

This is a great point. Non-compete agreements reduce risk of losing otherwise unprotected information to a competitor and probably increase retention of valuable employees. So preventing employers from using these agreements would increase risk and turnover, and employers might (read: probably would) decrease offered compensation in response.

Now, this effect might be dwarfed by the upward pressure on compensation caused by greater availability of alternative jobs for employees, but it’s not obvious to me that would be the case. I’d be interested to see some empirical studies on the subject.

[lovich]

I disagree with the assumption here that employers are offering increased compensation. When it's standard practice to have non competes _and_ they take years to be out of effect then you don't get competition that would require increased compensation for employees.

At this point even if a competitor jumped in and offered no non competes for the same wage, it wouldn't matter as no one can work for them. The mechanisms of capitalism require little to no barriers to entry and industry wide practices like non competes add large barriers which prevent the normal supply and demand mechanisms