Resistance to Noncompete Agreements Is a Win for Workers

The Wall Street Journal observes that a national backlash is building against employers that use noncompete agreements to bar exiting employees from taking jobs with industry competitors for certain periods of time. This is good news for workers, because eliminating barriers to job-hopping could help stir the sort of wage growth workers haven't seen since prior to the last recession. Employers have long used such accords to safeguard company secrets, applying them mainly to such high-earning individuals as business executives and attorneys. But noncompete provisions have been creeping into contracts for more workers, even lower-wage staffers like janitors and hairdressers, with businesses saying those workers have access to proprietary information and customer bases. In Washington, state lawmakers in April passed a law making noncompetes unenforceable for employees earning less than $100,000 a year. Earlier in 2019, New Hampshire's Senate passed legislation banning noncompete agreements for low-wage workers, and lawmakers in Pennsylvania and Vermont may soon follow suit.