Thumbtack, an online platform for matching customers with local professionals, has banned non-compete agreements for its employees and is now spreading awareness about the practice.
"What it does is it completely forestalls the ability of this talented person to go get another job based off the skills they've earned and the experience they've gathered," Thumbtack CEO and co-founder Marco Zappacosta told Cheddar.
Non-compete agreements, he argues, make it harder for workers to get a job with a competing firm once they've moved on from a company.
Once the purview of competitive executive positions, the practice has trickled down to lower-paid roles throughout the U.S. economy. These contracts usually set a time frame and geographic area for where and when a former employee can apply to work for a competitor.
For less robust job markets with fewer employers, these agreements can greatly reduce a worker's employment opportunities in a given area.
"The biggest misconception is that non-competes apply primarily to white-collar work, working at a hedge fund or something like that, when the reality is they're very common for blue-collar work," Zappacosta said.
A survey from the Economic Policy Institute found that just under half of companies reported requiring at least some of their employees to enter non-compete agreements, while roughly a third reported that all employees were required to enter into a non-compete agreement.
Zappacosta argues that this is an overstep on the part of employers and actually hobbles the economy and job market.
He also pointed out that California banned the practice as of 2018, which so far hasn't hampered the state's job market.
"We have one of the most vigorous economies in the world," he said. "Entrepreneurship is something we're famous for, and non-competes have certainly not gotten in the way of that."
As a company that connects customers with contract and freelance workers, Thumbtack also has an interest in a more flexible job market with fewer legal restrictions limiting mobility.
Zappacosta criticized the recent California Assembly Bill 5 (AB5), which aimed to make it harder for ride-hailing companies, such as Uber and Lyft, to classify drivers as contractors rather than employees.
"They had to carve out 50-60 different industries that are excepted from AB5, which highlights just how imperfect this two-class system is," he said.
In line with the goals of the law, a Superior Court judge last week ruled that Uber and Lyft must reclassify their workers from independent contractors to employees with benefits, a move that could fundamentally alter the gig economy in the state.
"Our big push is to have regulators, policy makers of all types, think of how we get past a world where we have to classify workers into these two categories," Zappacosta said.
Joe Cecela, Dream Exchange CEO, explains how they are aiming to form the first minority-controlled company to operate an exchange in U.S. history. Watch!
A Michigan judge is putting sponges in the hands of shoplifters and ordering them to wash cars in a Walmart parking lot when spring weather arrives. Genesee County Judge Jeffrey Clothier hopes the unusual form of community service discourages people from stealing from Walmart. The judge also wants to reward shoppers with free car washes. Clothier says he began ordering “Walmart wash” sentences this week for shoplifting at the store in Grand Blanc Township. He believes 75 to 100 people eventually will be ordered to wash cars this spring. Clothier says he will be washing cars alongside them when the time comes.
The State Department had been in talks with Elon Musk’s Tesla company to buy armored electric vehicles, but the plans have been put on hold by the Trump administration after reports emerged about a potential $400 million purchase. A State Department spokesperson said the electric car company owned by Musk was the only one that expressed interest back in May 2024. The deal with Tesla was only in its planning phases but it was forecast to be the largest contract of the year. It shows how some of his wealth has come and was still expected to come from taxpayers.
At 100 years old, the Goodyear Blimp is an ageless star in the sky. The 246-foot-long airship will be in the background of the Daytona 500 — flying roughly 1,500 feet above Daytona International Speedway, actually — to celebrate its greatest anniversary tour. Even though remote camera technologies are improving regularly and changing the landscape of aerial footage, the blimp continues to carve out a niche. At Daytona, with the usual 40-car field racing around a 2½-mile superspeedway, views from the blimp aptly provide the scope of the event.
You'll just have to wait for interest rates (and prices) to go down. Plus, this deal's a steel, the big carmaker wedding is off, and bribery is back, baby!
It’s a chicken-and-egg problem: Restaurants are struggling with record-high U.S. egg prices, but their omelets, scrambles and huevos rancheros may be part of the problem. Breakfast is booming at U.S. eateries. First Watch, a restaurant chain that serves breakfast, brunch and lunch, nearly quadrupled its locations over the past decade to 570. Fast-food chains like Starbucks and Wendy's added more egg-filled breakfast items. In normal times, egg producers could meet the demand. But a bird flu outbreak that has forced them to slaughter their flocks is making supplies scarcer and pushing up prices. Some restaurants like Waffle House have added a surcharge to offset their costs.
William Falcon, CEO and Founder of Lightning AI, discusses the ongoing feud between Elon Musk and Sam Altman, and how everyday people can use AI in their lives.
