I was writing a long comment up top about this, but instead I'll reply here. Person with a background in public policy, especially around poverty alleviation efforts. I think that the removal of non-compete clauses has to due to with employees who you normally (at least I wouldn't think) of being subject to non-compete clauses... namely, service industry workers. Apparently 1 in 6 are subject to non-compete clauses: https://thecounter.org/biden-targeting-non-compete-agreement... This industry has been 'suffering from' high vacancy rates since the start of the pandemic because the industry has low wages, minimal-to-non-existent benefits, generally no paid sick days, advanced notice of your work schedule isn't provided (thus it becomes difficult or impossible to attend college or work a second or third job), etc.
For a group of workers who are generally less able to afford legal remedies to situations such as non-compete clauses I can see how non-compete clauses are especially damaging to this group of workers. (I'll show some hard data points on non-compete clauses by pay and by education level obtained in a few paragraphs.)
If I had to guess I would say that non-compete clauses are being removed now because there's a "worker shortage": 1M dead from covid and of that some percentage (50%?) of that in the workforce; restricted immigration - legal and otherwise - for the last 3+ years and before that a decline in immigration due to the polices of the former guy). Why the quotation marks around worker shortage? Basically, the service industry businesses want workers but hardly anyone wants to work in the service industry because the pay's bad, there are often no benefits, in many states you don't know your schedule until the day of (which makes planning for childcare, attending college, etc. damn near impossible), etc.
So if I had to guess this is the federal government's way of attempting to address the "labor shortage" in the service industry across the United States as well as allow people in white collar jobs to switch into new roles. I would bet that most folks who fall under the 'knowledge worker' class of employment know that their company's non-compete clause is pretty much non-enforceable, but ask your average restaurant worker who is under such a clause and I bet that they believe that the non-compete clause _is_ enforceable.
From this report from 2015, it looks like ~18% of all US workers are under a non-compete clause in their current role, with ~15% of workers without a college degree being under a non-compete clause and roughly the same percentage of workers with an annual wage of <$40,000 being subject to a non-compete clause (Rf. page 7 of 36): https://home.treasury.gov/system/files/226/Non_Compete_Contr... In that same document on page 16 you'll note that California, Oklahoma and North Dakota have the 'least enforcement' of such clauses. I suspect that the oil and gas industry in OK and ND enjoys not paying for training of employees, so if your employee can be trained at a competitor and then jump to your place of employment, full trained / ready to work, that seems to be what those states are looking for. (Yep, large swaths of ND and OK have over 20% of that county's employees employed in the petroleum extraction industries: https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/chart-gallery/gallery... )
TL;DR: Fifteen to twenty percent of all Americans are currently working under non-compete clauses (with 1 in 6 food service industry workers being subject to non-compete clauses). Thousands of jobs are going unfilled in the service industry as well as in white collar, 'knowledge worker' domains. By removing the ability of employers to create and enforce non-compete clauses this should, in theory, 'free up' around 20% of the workforce to change jobs. In theory, most of these workers would be changing jobs for factors such as more flexible work schedule (advanced notice in the case of service industry workers; WFH for white-collar workers), benefits and sick days, and increased wages. My (admittedly cynical?) take on this is that by freeing up 20% of the workforce to switch jobs the federal (and state) governments are hoping that they can get away with any increased spending toward social services and instead can just tell people 'Well, go look for and get a better [paying] job! What's stopping you? Certainly not a non-compete!" Also, by allowing a 'great migration' into new roles the federal government can get a rough tally as to how many immigrants they'll need to let in via the skilled (H1B, NAFTA, etc.) and unskilled (EB3) visa programs; it's my opinion from looking at state- and federal-level labor statistics over the past 3+ years that the data is rather 'noisy' and by removing non-compete agreements it should make it easier to get a "closer to reality" tally of how many workers the US will 'need' to import to create and maintain full employment in various skilled and unskilled industries.
For a group of workers who are generally less able to afford legal remedies to situations such as non-compete clauses I can see how non-compete clauses are especially damaging to this group of workers. (I'll show some hard data points on non-compete clauses by pay and by education level obtained in a few paragraphs.)
If I had to guess I would say that non-compete clauses are being removed now because there's a "worker shortage": 1M dead from covid and of that some percentage (50%?) of that in the workforce; restricted immigration - legal and otherwise - for the last 3+ years and before that a decline in immigration due to the polices of the former guy). Why the quotation marks around worker shortage? Basically, the service industry businesses want workers but hardly anyone wants to work in the service industry because the pay's bad, there are often no benefits, in many states you don't know your schedule until the day of (which makes planning for childcare, attending college, etc. damn near impossible), etc.
So if I had to guess this is the federal government's way of attempting to address the "labor shortage" in the service industry across the United States as well as allow people in white collar jobs to switch into new roles. I would bet that most folks who fall under the 'knowledge worker' class of employment know that their company's non-compete clause is pretty much non-enforceable, but ask your average restaurant worker who is under such a clause and I bet that they believe that the non-compete clause _is_ enforceable.
From this report from 2015, it looks like ~18% of all US workers are under a non-compete clause in their current role, with ~15% of workers without a college degree being under a non-compete clause and roughly the same percentage of workers with an annual wage of <$40,000 being subject to a non-compete clause (Rf. page 7 of 36): https://home.treasury.gov/system/files/226/Non_Compete_Contr... In that same document on page 16 you'll note that California, Oklahoma and North Dakota have the 'least enforcement' of such clauses. I suspect that the oil and gas industry in OK and ND enjoys not paying for training of employees, so if your employee can be trained at a competitor and then jump to your place of employment, full trained / ready to work, that seems to be what those states are looking for. (Yep, large swaths of ND and OK have over 20% of that county's employees employed in the petroleum extraction industries: https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/chart-gallery/gallery... )
TL;DR: Fifteen to twenty percent of all Americans are currently working under non-compete clauses (with 1 in 6 food service industry workers being subject to non-compete clauses). Thousands of jobs are going unfilled in the service industry as well as in white collar, 'knowledge worker' domains. By removing the ability of employers to create and enforce non-compete clauses this should, in theory, 'free up' around 20% of the workforce to change jobs. In theory, most of these workers would be changing jobs for factors such as more flexible work schedule (advanced notice in the case of service industry workers; WFH for white-collar workers), benefits and sick days, and increased wages. My (admittedly cynical?) take on this is that by freeing up 20% of the workforce to switch jobs the federal (and state) governments are hoping that they can get away with any increased spending toward social services and instead can just tell people 'Well, go look for and get a better [paying] job! What's stopping you? Certainly not a non-compete!" Also, by allowing a 'great migration' into new roles the federal government can get a rough tally as to how many immigrants they'll need to let in via the skilled (H1B, NAFTA, etc.) and unskilled (EB3) visa programs; it's my opinion from looking at state- and federal-level labor statistics over the past 3+ years that the data is rather 'noisy' and by removing non-compete agreements it should make it easier to get a "closer to reality" tally of how many workers the US will 'need' to import to create and maintain full employment in various skilled and unskilled industries.