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That is what they are. If a non compete contract has no monetary consideration, it is virtually unenforceable. Our business law professor in college told us very clearly to simply ignore any non compete and she was general counsel at several major firms. No one is going to waste their time on enforcement. It's all about making the employees scared witless.

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"Not enforceable at trial" isn't the same thing as "they aren't going to send your new employer a nastygram that leads to getting fired after legal does a risk/reward analysis and decides to fill your role with the next available candidate"

Non-enforceability is not sufficient in this case, it needs to be prohibited under threat of harsh fines to add them to contracts in the first place.

Businesses know that the clauses are unenforceable, but since they are free to add them and they have some real impact - people not aware of their unenforceability may change their behaviour because of the existence of the clauses, and the threat of a lawsuit for any party involved is going to be a chilling factor in any case.

Time to make the cost of adding the clauses not free, to address the root cause.

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