Companies don’t really need non-competes anymore. Some companies take an extremely broad interpretation of IP confidentiality, where they consider doing any work in the industry during your lifetime an inevitable confidentiality violation. They argue it would be impossible for you to work elsewhere in this industry during your entire career without violating confidentiality with the technical and business instincts you bring to that domain. It doesn’t require conscious violation on your part (they argue).
So beware and read your employment agreement carefully.
More here https://www.promarket.org/2024/02/08/confidentiality-agreeme...
And this is the insane legal doctrine behind this
In fact, 12% of hourly workers earning $20 or less had to sign non-competes. These workers do not have access to corporate secrets. It simply reduces their power to negotiate with their employer.
https://www.minneapolisfed.org/article/2021/non-compete-cont...
At least in Brazil you can't enforce something the law doesn't allow in a contract - that clause would be considered void without nullifying the contract. And Labour law in Brazil leans (or used to lean) more in favor of the employee,so yes, the law would win. Another aspect there is that unions are more common than in the US, and they will help in such cases.
Unless the law also has severe penalty for including such terms, of course they are. They don't need to dissuade 100% of people from breaking 100% of the terms to be of use to the company.