Eli5: how exactly can companies enforce non-compete contracts? How is it their business what company you go to, and how would they even know?
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TLDR: They’re not, it’s pretty much just a scare tactic.
Pretty much the only time they are enforceable is when the company agrees to pay you during the period of your non-compete (Example they give you a 2 year severance, and stipulate you can’t work for a direct competitor for 2 years.)
And even then, you typically need to be in a highly technical trades and professions, say you develop a new technology for a company, they may have a non-compete clause to prevent you from quoting to go to a competitor and sharing the technology. Or say you’re a corporate lawyer and move to another firm and convince clients to follow you. But theres usually so many other legal avenues to prevent that from happening that the Non-compete is pretty much irrelevant.
The purpose of it, and “their business”, is that you don’t take business from them and give it to a competitor. It’s to prevent you from doing damage to the business after you leave. For say a shelf stocker moving from Walmart to target, it’s irrelevant.
But the executive in charge of supplier logistics moving from Walmart to target has the potential to use their connections to benefit target at a cost to Walmart. They could use insider knowledge to distrust Walmarts supply chain by underbidding on shipping contracts, etc. That level is where you will typically see non-competes which are actually enforceable.
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