Hämmar konkurrensklausuler arbetstagarens rörlighet på arbetsmarknaden?

Sammanfattning: Competition clauses, also known as non-compete agreements, are frequently used in employment contracts and there are different regulations for what they may contain. In 2015 Svenskt Näringsliv and PTK signed a new collective agreement for competition clauses. The purpose of the agreement was to substitute the collective agreement of 1969. The new agreement includes a broader area of application and updated guidelines to help with the formulation of competition clauses. The increased utilization of competition clauses is due to the strenuous development of the labour market, which also demands clear-cut regulations. This paper discusses the region of Silicon Valley located in west coast of the United States, where competition clauses are prohibited. The example is used for perspective and in comparison to the Swedish regulations. The lack of restrictions by competition clauses has increased the mobility of the employees in the Silicon Valley area. The aim of this paper is to examine in what way competition clauses affect the employees’ ability to move freely within the labour market. This has led to the following research questions: How do competition clauses affect the employees’ ability to move freely within the labour market? What is a competition clause? What are the purpose of competition clauses? How does the new collective agreement affect the employees’ mobility within the labour market and how is it different from the collective agreement of 1969? The paper concludes the importance of considering an alternative to the competition clause in situations where they might be considered unnecessary. Hopefully the changes in the new collective agreement will amount to a positive development of competition clauses and further support mobility within the labour market.