Noncompete clauses lead to wage reduction totaling $300 billion each year, according to an April 21 article by DCReport.
Using data from the Economic Policy Institute, DCReport found that noncompete clauses decrease the pay of workers subject to them by approximately 15%.
The debate behind regulating noncompete clauses has come to a head recently, as the FTC will begin to hold hearings April 23 on its plan to create stricter rules around the enforcement of noncompete contracts, according to DCReport.
Physicians are among those affected, and according to Thomas Pliura, MD, physician and attorney in Le Roy, Ill., they are not in the best interest of physicians nor patients.
"Virtually all of those doctors are coerced into signing binding noncompete provisions that prohibit these physicians from leaving the employment status to go back to the private practice of medicine," Dr. Pliura recently told Becker's. "These physicians are led to believe the grass is greener on the other side of the fence, but when they go into an employed setting, that is not always true. But they are handcuffed by these restrictive noncompetes. I hold the opinion that one of the worst things for the public [are] noncompete clauses."