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> I'm amazed that people sign contracts accepting this kind of restrictions to their lives.

I believe he's talking about a contract between the companies, not contracts with individual employees. That may be different.

An employer making an employee sign a contract saying that they won't work elsewhere without the employer's permission has obvious problems, such as the vast (usually) difference in bargaining power between an employer and an individual employee, and it gives the employer massive control over the employee's life.

I believe that those are the main reasons many jurisdictions make such clauses unenforceable.

In the case of two companies making a deal that company A will buy a service from company B and not hire away B's employees, you are much less likely to have such a great disparity in bargaining power. Unless it's a very small industry, B's employees probably have many other job opportunities in that industry besides A and other companies B has worked for.

That suggests that there might not be such strong public policy reasons for make such contract unenforceable, especially if they have some time limit such as B's employees can't be hired by A for a year after working on B's service for A.

Almost every court case I can recall hearing of in this area was either (1) contracts between companies and individual employees, not between companies, or (2) arrangements between competing companies to try to limit labor mobility to keep salaries down, which raised antitrust issues.

No-one was stopping Star Theory employees from going to work for Take-Two.

The problem was when Take-Two messaged every worker at the company and said "We've just bankrupted the studio you work for. Come work for us on the same product you were working on before".

> Having worked as a consultant, I'm repulsed by the idea that I'd need my company's permission to leave and go work for a client

For a large consultancy with many clients, I agree.

But when a significant portion of your employer's income is a single client:

Are you comfortable with that single client of your employer having a strong incentive to make your job redundant so they can try to hire you under worse terms (as you suddenly lost your job)?

You don't need your company's permission, you're unemployed.

I guess what I'm thinking is something more along the lines of not hiring employees immediately after making them redundant through your own actions?

>> Are you comfortable with that single client of your employer having a strong incentive to make your job redundant so they can try to hire you under worse terms (as you suddenly lost your job)?

I understand what you mean, and that situation doesn't seem desirable either, but I think that that is very uncommon when compared to companies trying to retain/squeeze employees using contracts with employment restrictions.

>That's (fortunately) illegal in the EU country I live in, as it creates artificial barriers in the job "market", i.e. it is illegal to limit people's access to work. Still, cartel practices like not hiring from "friendly companies" abound.

Interesting. I've heard of EU countries where leaving a job requires giving 2+ months of notice or paying a large financial penalty.

Yes, it's usually three months in Germany. It's a bit on the long side but I don't mind that much. I guess I've been lucky to have only nice working environments so I've never been in any particular hurry to leave.

> I'm amazed that people sign contracts accepting this kind of restrictions to their lives.

I'm amazed that there are people out there who think we have a choice. I would not have my most important clients if I refused to sign non-solicitation clauses.