I agree that non-competes being enforced are uncommon. I've never even heard of it happening in Canada.
That being said, my contract with AWS stipulates that I can't work for their competitors, it's insanely wide so I don't see how it could realistically be enforced, but I still signed it which means that technically I can't work for Azure/GCP. I would much rather see the practice outlawed entirely so as to not have to worry about it.
I had an interview with amazon (canada) once. In order to get to the onsite interview (not a job offer, just the interview) they wanted me to sign a crazy non-compete (contingent on me accepting an offer if i was eventually offered one) that forbid me on working for any compeititor to amazon at all, including areas they intend to compete in the future, even if i was unaware of their future plans to compete.
It seemed obviously unenforcible, almost to the point of being comical. But i took it as a giant red flag and declined the interview.
> Is it just an American boilerplate type thing? Americans just think they should have non-competes?
No, they aren’t even legal in California so it’s just some employers and in some states. The financial ones in NY are actually pretty reasonable because employers will pay you during the time after you leave when you aren’t allowed to go to a competitor. Not sure if that’s legally require there or just the market expectation.
AWS is based in Seattle and WA does have non competes so almost every tech company there will try to have you sign one. One of the reasons why Seattle will never become a real tech hub. And I’ve never seen any stipulations of payment while non compete is pending for engineering roles
Are you mixing up gardening leave and non-competes?
In any case, I think above some level of compensation basically all crazy clauses that people agree to voluntarily should be fine as far as the law is concerned: there's no need to protect well-off people from themselves.
There might or might not be an argument that poor people need to be protected from themselves like little children, and thus that there should be some contracts they shouldn't be allowed to enter. (Just like we only allow some very carefully considered contracts for children to enter into. Eg buying candy is fine; but going into debt is not enforceable against them.)
I’m in the Vancouver, BC area and there are a few Canadian companies that have non-competes that I’ve heard of. These are not tech based companies either.
That being said, my contract with AWS stipulates that I can't work for their competitors, it's insanely wide so I don't see how it could realistically be enforced, but I still signed it which means that technically I can't work for Azure/GCP. I would much rather see the practice outlawed entirely so as to not have to worry about it.