President Biden will push federal regulators to crack down on noncompete clauses, occupational licensing requirements and other measures that administration officials say hurt workers’ ability to pursue better jobs, as part of a broad executive order meant to bolster competition across the economy. The efforts to increase competition in the labor market, according to a person familiar with them, will be detailed in an order issued in the coming days. The order will encourage the Federal Trade Commission to ban or limit noncompete agreements, which employers have increasingly used in recent years to try to inhibit their workers’ ability to quit for a better job. It encourages the commission to also ban “unnecessary” occupational licensing restrictions, which can restrict workers’ ability to find new work, especially across state lines. More broadly, the executive order encourages antitrust regulators to consider the ways that mergers might contribute to monopsonies, or industries in which workers have few choices of where to work and therefore lack leverage to negotiate higher wages or better benefits.

Source: New York Times July 07, 2021 12:22 UTC