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Comment by jib | Hacker News Reader

My French contract had 2 months notice and a non compete option for the employer, where they had the option to pay me 75% of the salary for 2 years to enforce the non compete. That kind of non competes I don’t mind.

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I would mind it a lot, because when I leave a company I'll be making more than I do now, not 75% of what I do now.

Getting 75% of your salary to do nothing for 2 years is the opportunity of a lifetime - travel the world, get a Masters degree, find a low CoL area and bank 90% of it while contributing to open source projects, the options are endless.

> Getting 75% of your salary to do nothing for 2 years is the opportunity of a lifetime

The examples you listed makes me ask this. Imagine your parents, while raising you, given this option of having their pay reduced by 25%. How likely would the options you listed have been an "opportunity of a lifetime" to them?

It could work out really well; they'd have loads more time to spend with their kids, and could take on other part-time/casual non-competing work to make up the difference.

I can imagine plenty of people would accept the option of taking 75% of their salary to spend all/most of their time with their young kids for a couple of years.

After tax, it might not work out to much of a difference anyway, especially after you consider the other incidental expenses relating to work (transport, attire, etc).

Of course, no agreement is going to be 100% perfect in every scenario, but this is way more even-handed than a one-way non-compete with no compensation at all.

Would the non compete cover supermarket checkout work? That might make up the difference.

Are you really saying that 100% of your time is worth 25% of your salary? And that isn't even counting work-related costs.

I have a right to earn a living. I have worked many years preparing to do so in a particular area of trade. There is a market price for my skills. Taking 25% of that away is unfair, is my point. Justifying it by saying "Oh, but you could travel!" is the same level of empathy as saying "Let them eat cake".

You can easily make half of your original salary back by working part-time in a sector not directly related to the one you left. If you're already given 75% of your old salary, you won't even need to be picky. You can learn new skills and work on your hobbies/the rest of your life, while receiving a princely sum for the amount of work you're actually doing. It's only a bad deal if your current sector is all you ever aspire to work in, and I'd posit that's not the case for the majority of people.

I agree with you, but then you're not choosing. It might not be a right time for you to take a 2 years pause, you might really want to work for this competitor (which is why you're quitting)

Why would they get to choose? The moment they 'make' you sign the non-compete, quit and take your holiday.

Most American engineers don't think that way, because they have house mortgages they have to keep paying on, and Americans are terrible at living within their means so even upper middle class people are living paycheck-to-paycheck (i.e., they bought a house they could only barely afford with their current pay rate, a pay cut would mean they'd be forced to sell or go bankrupt).

You can still work in a company not directly competing with your previous employer and get the compensation.

I just had a quick look (I never had one), non-competes without compensation are illegal in France.

I'm not a lawyer but I don't think you can do that, no

Yes you can. I'm serving a 1 year non-compete and my former employer encourages getting non finance work because they hope you never go back to the industry

What a horrible thing for society. Forcing people to stop doing things they are so good at that employers will pay them not to work with their competitors.

It’s funny, my second biggest expense after the mortgage is my season ticket. I haven’t run the numbers but it’s possible that 75% of my salary without that and the other costs of working might actually break even!

Yeah I ain't agreeing to take a 2 year hole in my employment.

If they're paying you to take garden leave, you're technically still employed by them. By my reckoning, that wouldn't leave a gap.

Another possible explanation: "I took a two-year sabbatical to work on my own projects and improve my skills".

What I care about is the two years of not working, that's long enough to get seriously rusty and having to make up stuff when talking about work experience when interviewing.

One time I got $50k and full salary to stay on with a group that was in run down mode. I wouldn't take that option again.

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