Florida is letting companies make it harder for highly paid workers to swap jobs
152 comments
·July 9, 2025OkayPhysicist
Noncompetes are a scourge. If your company requires them to survive, then it deserves to fail. Any argument in favor of them can be trivially nullified by pointing at California's unrivaled economic success, "despite" (or perhaps in part because of) its complete ban on noncompetes dating back to its founding. Indentured servitude has no place in the modern world.
teeray
I feel like noncompetes could work under one condition: the person is paid at 100% with full benefits for the entire non-compete period. You want contract terms that make someone unemployable for a year? That means you’re stuck paying for their year-long vacation. Don’t like it? Well, then maybe have a shorter non-compete or none at all.
OkayPhysicist
This still gives an employer an unfair advantage, in that they don't need to compete to keep the employee. It also adds a significant amount of friction to the job market, artificially suppressing wages. The fair solution to the problem, which is actually legal even in places where noncompetes are illegal, is to pay the employee to not work elsewhere. As in, that's their job, and just like any other job, they're free to quit it at any time, in exchange for giving up their compensation for doing that job.
ElevenLathe
Workers on gardening leave could hold an auction between their new prospective employer and their current employer. If the old firm can match the new one, they can keep the employee on gardening leave. If they can't, they can take the new job, though I guess that's strictly less freedom for the employee than the system you describe.
lcnPylGDnU4H9OF
> artificially suppressing wages
What if the 100% was of a competing offer?
dylan604
But this does nothing for the company to protect its IP from that employee quitting to immediately go to work for a competitor. By keeping them on the payroll but working on "Special Projects" that is no where close to IP, they become stale in current state of the art.
In the Silicon Valley show, this is why Big Head and the other folks "office" on the roof. They are segregated from the other employees while they continue to get paid.
noslenwerdna
What other states have had non-competes similar to California? North Dakota and Oklahoma.
It's possible that other factors might be more important in driving California's economic success...
OkayPhysicist
When you're restricting people's freedom, you have to have a good justification for doing it. There are zero states that have achieved greater economic success than California by allowing noncompetes, thus it is safe to say that noncompetes are not necessary to achieve economic success.
John23832
The point being that strict non-competes do not actually bolster the business environment.
danudey
They bolster businesses by making it easier for them to retain employees even if those employees are being treated like shit, because it makes it illegal for those employees to work anywhere else.
That doesn't help the economy, but it helps the businesses.
modeless
There's no doubt in my mind that Silicon Valley's success should be credited in part to California's ban on non-competes. Bad for individual companies, but good for industries.
Just look at Meta's current poaching spree, and previously the founding of Anthropic, SSI, Thinky. Whatever secrets OpenAI has will slowly but inevitably diffuse into other companies. Bad for OpenAI but strongly positive for literally everyone else in the world. It pushes OpenAI to keep innovating rather than rest on their laurels.
godelski
You forgot to also mention that it was good for OpenAI too! Maybe not at this exact time, but it was previously.
Which is a big problem with a lot of companies, and frankly a common bias in human thinking: hyper fixation on the present. I find this ironic given that one of our greatest skills that has led to our success as a species is foresight.
There's a ton of inefficiencies going on right now because of this fixation. As a simple example, the best way for a worker to get a raise is to change jobs. Frequently the last person in has the highest pay (or rather it tends upwards). So older employees leave. But those employees leaving mean a bigger loss because they have institutional knowledge and newer employees are less valuable because they need to be trained. It's cheaper on the long run to readjust your current employee salaries to keep them rather than hide people's salaries and hope they don't jump ship. But the latter strategy is definitely cheaper in the short term.
You can probably think of tons of examples and even more if you start to include natural coalitions with others[0]
[0] there's frequent psych experiments that are along the lines of "would you rather get $10 and other person get $10 or you get $50 and other person gets $100?" The former is frequently chosen because it's "more fair" despite being a worse option for yourself
antonvs
Well, it's "bad for individual companies" in the same sort of way as not being able to murder your competitors is bad for individual companies.
MangoToupe
> There's no doubt in my mind that Silicon Valley's success should be credited in part to California's ban on non-competes.
Maybe, but it's clear that even statute doesn't prevent bad behavior: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L...
modeless
You linked to an example of statute preventing bad behavior. Yes, it took years, the law moves slowly, but it happened. Retroactive compensation was provided for those affected, but most importantly, corporate policies changed.
_DeadFred_
It really hurt Borland with Microsoft poaching their people purely to cause Borland damage.
echelon
> Noncompetes are a scourge.
I can see why small companies might want non-competes to prevent their employees from being poached by hyperscaler monopolies.
If non-competes continue to exist, they should be pared down to small-scoped work descriptions only, eg. not "AI" broadly, but rather something like "AI diffusion for skeletal movement". The non-competes shouldn't have durations longer than a year, and the companies enacting the contract should be required to pay departing employees a salary (or some large percentage of a salary) if they want to enforce the non-compete.
Non-competes should also only be used to prevent employees from joining larger companies, not smaller ones. And they should never prevent work at a startup or new venture.
ryandrake
I take issue with the idea that I, as an employee, may be "poached". I am not a deer or wild boar, owned by a feudal lord, and protected on his land from hunters. I should be free to have agency and enter into business arrangements with anyone I choose. Just because my company "invested" money into my growth/education/training, doesn't mean they should own me for some period of time while they figure out how to make that investment pay off. Let's stop using this word poached. It's not analogous to an employer/employee relationship.
simonsarris
Do you take issue with being "grilled" during interviews, because you are not a sizzling slab of beef? It's just a metaphor, just like headhunting is a metaphor for executive search, despite the CEOs being the feudal lords, as you see it.
derektank
I don't actually disagree but it's worth pointing out the US government, which values freedom of association as a bedrock principle, itself takes the view that, if they invest in your education and training, they "own" you for a period of time. Military servicemembers are required to sign service commitments both when they enter the service, but also upon completion of training and the length of the commitment is tied to the length/intensity of training. Air Force pilots are usually committed to serving on active duty for up to 12 years, due to the value of their training and many immediately jump ship to private industry after reaching that point.
Personally, I think banning non-competes probably does reduce the amount of investment in education that companies make, but it's a tradeoff worth making to improve overall labor market efficiency and better guarantee personal freedom.
candiddevmike
If an employee was worth X and the company made them worth Y, they should pay them Y to continue having them as an employee. Anything else distorts the labor market.
Now having to pay back training or education if you leave before Z months seems reasonable.
lostdog
Ok, but let's make the non-compete bidirectional.
If I leave or am fired from your company, then you are not allowed to hire anybody who works in my field for at least one year.
OkayPhysicist
Don't want your employees to leave? Pay them more.
stego-tech
More Capital lashing against the minor victories of the prior administration for workers.
If your business information is so sensitive and valuable that losing an employee could hurt you, then you ought to be compensating that employee well enough that they don’t see the value in taking on the risk of a job hunt.
onlyrealcuzzo
Florida doesn't have that many highly paid workers.
They've got a decent amount of rich retired or passive income folks.
Aren't they trying to attract high earners from high tax places like NYC?
This sounds like a bad idea if you're trying to convince people from NYC to move to FL, which sounds like a bad idea for the businesses it's presumably trying to serve.
But what do I know?
charliebwrites
> This sounds like a bad idea if you're trying to convince people from NYC to move to FL, which sounds like a bad idea for the businesses it's presumably trying to serve.
Employees, yes. But the execs at these big firms would love to have more control over their best people so they have less leverage
Employees unfortunately need employers to pay them, so they will take the deal they can get
If your options all move to Florida, guess where you’re moving
Yeul
The US is going full Cyberpunk! After 20 years of service you are eligible for citizenship of the Corporate zone and one child permit.
Analemma_
> and one child permit
The way discourse has been trending lately, I suspect it will be just the opposite. Florida and Texas will probably be first to impose one-child-minimum policies, with heavy penalties for noncompliance.
codeddesign
This is limited to industry category and employee’s keep their current pay. How is this bad?
coev
Bonus is a very significant component (often the majority) of comp that gets cut when you're under a noncompete in these kinds of jobs. Yes I understand that's a "world's smallest violin" problem at these scales.
stego-tech
Seriously? HN and the tech news sector have exhaustively covered the abuse and exploitation of noncompetes inside and outside of tech for the past decade. They protect employers at the expense of employees, consistently fail to provide reasonable compensation for lengthy agreements, and are regularly exploited by bad actors to harm current and former employees by making them accept lower wages and worse working conditions.
Even fifteen minutes of casual reading through old threads here should answer this question for you. The only supporters of non-competes tend to be those who do not view employees as people, but as proprietary property.
If your company information is so sensitive that losing a worker would leave you vulnerable, then the solution is to compensate that employee well enough that they don’t see the need to leave and take on that additional risk.
bigbadfeline
> This is limited to industry category and employee’s keep their current pay. How is this bad?
I don't know... former communist countries had restrictions precisely like this one, it was an integral part of their regulations.
Former feudal countries too, maybe a bit harsher.
The land of the serfs and category 5 hurricanes - sounds sweet.
> and employee’s keep their current pay
Oh yeah, inflation is just starting - to pay for the big bubblegum bill, in real terms that pay is going down 10%/yr, and the serfs cannot renegotiate.
ysofunny
their current pay is getting increasingly worthless given inflationary trends
lokar
Citadel and other hedge funds have been moving people there (from NY and Chicago)
bobbiechen
Anecdotally, I heard that at these firms, all the "interesting" work is moving to Florida office because of the longer non-compete period. New York and other offices still exist but the most promising proprietary stuff goes to Florida.
JackFr
They are moving to Florida because the personal income tax rate in Forida is 0% and in New York it's about 14%.
commandlinefan
According to the article, this kicks in at $140K. I imagine this impacts a LOT of Floridians these days.
PenguinCoder
I doubt it. Not just reports on various online forums, but I have family in FL and they always, still are, complaining about low wages. FL is mostly hospitality and tourism. Not a whole lot of 140k + salaries to go around.
Non anecdotal source - https://livingwage.mit.edu/counties/12057
rs186
I hear that many financial services jobs are moving to cities like Tampa and Miami -- would like someone to confirm that.
toomuchtodo
Tampa and Dallas, lower wages and regulation (vs NYC and NJ traditionally).
potato3732842
I work in the space and it's a steady trickle for sure.
hightrix
There is a large medical technology presence in Florida. Many of these people are highly paid.
gist
> This sounds like a bad idea if you're trying to convince people from NYC to move to FL
People will typically come to Florida (despite this) because it's Florida and a nicer place to work year round than NY etc.
hollywood_court
Ahh the party of small government strikes again.
meepmorp
everyone's a minarchist, it's just they disagree on which bits of the state are necessary
antonvs
You're either using the term incorrectly, or your overall claim is incorrect.
For example, minarchists are not in favor of universal healthcare, by definition - it doesn't fit the short list of the kinds of roles that minarchists believe government should play. There are plenty of people who are in favor of universal healthcare, who can't be called minarchists.
Supermancho
Well phrased.
HamsterDan
This change neither increases nor decreases the size of the government, so it's unclear how you think "party of small government" is relevant here.
hydrogen7800
"Size" can be power, not just headcount.
pseudolus
Apparently for employers a significant benefit is that it actually requires courts to issue an injunction against the covered employee.
The injunction in turn can only be modified or dissolved if the covered employee – or prospective employer – proves by clear and convincing evidence (which must be based on non-confidential information) that:
the employee will not perform similar work during the restricted period or use confidential information or customer relationships;
the employer failed to pay the salary or benefits required under a covered garden leave agreement, or failed to provide consideration for a non-compete agreement, after the employee provided a “reasonable opportunity” to cure the failure; or
the prospective employer is not engaged in (or preparing to engage in) a similar business as the covered employer within the restricted territory.[0]
The "clear and convincing standard" (which is an intermediate burden of proof between the standard civil "balance of probabilities" and the strict "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard) coupled with the requirement of providing only non-confidential information to oppose the injunction will likely make this a slam dunk for employers.
[0] https://www.fisherphillips.com/en/news-insights/florida-enfo...
oooyay
> the employer failed to pay the salary or benefits required under a covered garden leave agreement, or failed to provide consideration for a non-compete agreement, after the employee provided a “reasonable opportunity” to cure the failure; or
Do I understand this correctly - they're expanding non-competes to 4 years and you have to be paid full compensation during that time or the agreement is nullified?
pseudolus
That appears to be a correct reading. The issue, apparently, is that you're only paid your base compensation. If a large portion of your total compensation is based on bonuses or equity grants, as is frequently the case in finance and tech, you're out of luck.
oooyay
ah, there's the catch. I feel like garden leave should extend your employment so things like stock continue to vest while you're on it.
daft_pink
So if you move out of Florida after you leave your job, can you escape the restriction?
lokar
Yes. I moved from NY to CA, and that made it non-enforceable.
But, at least for Eng types with higher TC a bunch of the comp is deferred, and if you breach the agreement you forfeit the money.
No1
I’m curious if you consulted with an attorney about that? I’ve heard the opposite from people looking to move from Chicago to CA. Does your former employer have a nexus in CA?
Using Florida as an example, if your contract was signed in Florida, your former employer is in Florida, and your case is tried in Florida, the courts aren’t going to pay any regard to California law, and you can be found liable for breach of contract and damages. Correct me if I’m wrong.
lokar
The agreements don’t have damages (other than the loss of deferred compensation as I noted).
The normal way to use the agreement is to seek injunctive relief. That would have the be in CA, where no judge will allow it.
And they did informally confirm they could not prevent me of taking a competitive job, which my employment lawyer confirmed.
dhussoe
What do you mean by "deferred" here? I'm a fairly high level IC at a big tech company (high TC), but it's only "deferred" in the sense of more of the TC being in RSUs (over 80%) with less frequent vesting vs. biweekly salary paychecks. But if you leave, you're already forfeiting future vests anyways.
lokar
Hedge funds don’t pay in stock. So they often take part of your cash bonus (which is what you would have made in RSU vesting) and put it into the fund. You get it back out in a few years.
OkayPhysicist
Generally, probably not. The federal courts have not been a fan of California's noncompete ban specifically including those signed out of state. But if you can find some way to force the case into California courts, then yes.
bitcurious
Seems short-sighted by the investment firms. They aren’t just competing with other Florida firms, they are competing with NYC and London and Hong Kong. Why would top talent move there?
0xcafefood
Florida's Homestead Law also exempts one's primary residence from being taken to pay creditors.
djfivyvusn
Weather
WarOnPrivacy
>> Why would top talent move there?
> Weather
The manufactured perception of weather, really. What folks discover after moving to FL:
Florida has 6 or 8 seasons and none of them resemble fall, winter or spring.
The 13th month of summer is the worst.
In Oct, trees finally succumb to heat stroke and drop their leaves.
Hurricanes are much better than summer except for a few hours.
Rainfall doesn't stick around; drought begins when rain stops.
Drought season varies between 15 min and 15 years.
Wildfire seasons vary from all day to world class.
The least-hot months get warmer every decade.¹
The other months probably are too.
At night, the dew point can plunge to 85°.
Sweat is your constant companion but so is sand.
Schools cleverly time summer break between May (Hell) & Aug (also Hell).
¹ https://www.currentresults.com/Yearly-Weather/USA/FL/Tampa/e...
zamalek
Hurricanes are only going to keep getting worse too.
flkiwi
It's funny: I lived in a state with similar weather (hotter at the hottest, colder during the winter, but on balance similar humidity and climate generally) but fewer imports from NY/NJ/CA/etc., and we were outside all the time enjoying it. In Florida, everyone spends time inside with the AC set to 64 degrees and complains endlessly about the heat. It's odd to see: a bunch of folks move to "Endless Summer!" and then ... stay inside all the time. I'll happily march around outside on a 100-degree day while my NY colleagues absolutely refuse to.
roxolotl
As someone who lives in the NYC area it’s always entertaining to me when I go to Florida and see how low they set the AC. Basically every house from before 2010 doesn’t have AC in the NYC area. I’m currently working in an office that’s 85 and it’ll hit mid 90s before the end of the day. Climate acclimation is pretty neat.
somat
I am from the California desert with family in Florida and 100 degree here is almost nothing, back east it is pure misery. As bonus the dry desert air retains heat poorly so it is always cool at night. The humidity there tends to keep it hot all night.
Now having said that, I do note how much they complain how dry it is here, so perhaps it is what you are used to.
IncreasePosts
Florida has endless summers, but they're in winter
0cf8612b2e1e
You mean increasingly severe hurricanes?
0xcafefood
Those seem to hit NYC now too. Not as often, but it's also less prepared for them when they do.
wil421
I’ll take a chance of a Hurricane every couple decades vs a single season of snow.
djfivyvusn
Win some lose some.
eikenberry
Lol... Florida has some of the worse weather in the US. The winters can be nice but it has incredibly hot/humid summers. Miserable. It's why all the snow birds leave early spring and come back in the winter. I'd take a winter in North Dakota vs a summer in Florida any day.
matttproud
Coming soon (again) to a Florida near you: Liberty of Contract and Lochner Era jurisprudence.
toomuchtodo
It's an interesting tug of war, Florida and Texas vs other states. Businesses move there because it's the wild west and low regulation, but their climate costs are accelerating rapidly which is going to lead to what I can only describe as this image from São Paulo: https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/nov/29/sao-paulo-inj...
What happens as these states continue to get squeezed by unfavorable long term economics while these businesses and the wealthy continue their performance art? What happens when it becomes constantly more difficult to attract labor to states where the quality of education is low (assuming workers who have or plan to have kids) and the cost of living continues to go up (insurance, etc). An interesting natural experiment and observations ahead.
(Florida resident for the last ~decade, but no longer as of late; US climate costs are approaching ~$1T/year, make good choices)
Analemma_
I've mentioned this before, but once the climate problems in Florida can no longer be handwaved away and Miami is perpetually in a shin-deep layer of water (this already happens after every major rain event, and it will gradually take longer and longer to return to normal, and eventually it will not), Floria will demand and probably get a hundred-billion-dollar engineering megaproject to try and fix the issue on the taxpayer's dime. This will happen because there is too much invested-- both financially in the real estate market, and emotionally in the climate change don't real market-- to walk away.
lukeschlather
The NYC seawall depicted in The Expanse seems pretty plausible, it's such a dense area with so many people and so much income. And the seawall isn't really any different from the existing waterfront, so NYC remains recognizably NYC.
Florida though, everything is sprawling, there's no small area you could actually wall off. And the whole point of Florida is living near the beach, not concrete canyons.
null
meepmorp
> a hundred-billion-dollar engineering megaproject
if it was actually and effective solution and only cost that much, it'd be a bargain; I'd expect 5-10x
selimthegrim
Let’s see how this is working in New Orleans with the levees subsiding
toomuchtodo
Construction (both infrastructure and housing) faces a shortage of low single digit million workers nationally. Now, account for deportations of workers in those industries. Account for 4M Boomers retiring per year. Account for an annual year over year decline in prime working age participation due to declining total fertility rates. Who is going to do this actual megaproject engineering and construction work? Print or borrow all the fiat you want, there aren't enough people for the body of work to be done.
Residents of Florida are already waiting months or over a year sometimes to get a roof replaced, because there are not enough workers.
South Florida's water supply under threat from saltwater intrusion crisis - https://www.cbsnews.com/miami/news/south-floridas-water-supp... - April 24th, 2025
Miami-Dade Saltwater Interface GIS Mapping - https://geoportal.sfwmd.gov/portal/home/item.html?id=128fce3...
‘The industry is in a crisis:’ Construction worker shortage delaying projects, driving up costs, experts say - https://www.clickorlando.com/news/local/2025/02/24/the-indus... - February 24th, 2025 ("Immigrants account for 31% of all workers in construction trades across the country. In Florida, an estimated 38% of construction workers are foreign-born.")
Miami is 'ground zero' for climate risk. People are moving to the area and building there anyway - https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/26/miami-is-ground-zero-for-cli... - April 26th, 2024 ("By 2060, about 60% of Miami-Dade County will be submerged, estimates Harold Wanless, a professor of geography and sustainable development at the University of Miami." ... "The trend shows how many Americans are ultimately willing to overlook environmental risks, even though most acknowledge its presence — a choice that could later devastate them financially.")
Climate Costs in 2040: Florida - https://www.climatecosts2040.org/files/state/FL.pdf (9,243 miles of seawall are needed. Florida has the highest cost of building seawalls. 23 Florida counties face at least $1 Billion expenditures. 24 municipalities are up against bills of over $100,000 per person)
mendyberger
Kind of a dumb question, but how does it work if you have a 10 year non-compete in FL but move to another state after 5 years, is the non-compete valid in the other state?
0xcafefood
Before even opening the article, I speculated that this is related to financial firms eyeing Miami as an alternative location to NYC. And right there at the top "The new law is a big win for Citadel CEO Ken Griffin, who advocated for it."
Many hedge funds and trading companies saddle their employees with very stringent non-competes. Citadel Securities moved to Miami recently.
"If we want to attract those kinds of clean, high-paying jobs, you have to provide those businesses protection on the investment that they're making and their employees."
Why isn't the relatively free job market in Silicon Valley something "East Coast" corporations are looking to emulate? I speculate that there's a major difference in the moat (or lack thereof) between tech firms and financial firms. I can know roughly how Youtube or Instagram work and still not be able to replicate them and take their profits for myself. But knowing which "fishing hole" the guys at Citadel visit might be enough to replicate their strategy. They must not really have a "moat" (outside of the super low latency front running stuff that's really costly to get started).
lotsofpulp
>Why isn't the relatively free job market in Silicon Valley something "East Coast" corporations are looking to emulate?
Because there isn't that much potential profit in finance/trading. As the years go by, more and more is commoditized/automated.
> Miami is the 'future of America'
Probably true in that it's on track to be mostly destroyed by climate change and people are injuring themselves looking the other way.