The ties that bind: five facts on post-employment restraints in Australia

To explore this further, the e61 Institute has collaborated with the ABS to develop a firm-side survey to measure the prevalence and use of restraint clauses more accurately. [...] • Finally, the planned integration of the survey responses with firm-level administrative data (as part of the ABS Business Longitudinal Analysis Data Environment) will facilitate future Australian research examining the economic consequences of restraint clauses along the lines of the existing international work outlined in Box 1. [...] The ties that bind:five facts on post-employment restraints in Australia Box 2: Estimating the share of workers subject to restraint clauses Since firms report the share of their workforce subject to each restraint in ranges (e.g. [...] But from the perspective of the economy as a whole, such restraints may be harmful to productivity if they impede the reallocation of skilled labour to more productive firms and the broad diffusion of knowledge. [...] But the simplicity of the FTC approach is to recognise that non-competes both reduce the bargaining power of low skilled workers and hamper productivity growth by restricting the mobility of high skilled labour.