Banning Solicitation of IT Talent

This is pretty heavy news. A Korean court ordered 6 researchers who left LG Electronics to move to a rival called Pantech not to move for one year. Pantech made it clear after the ruling that it will accept the resignation of newly hired six former LG workers in line with the court decision and rehire them next year. If the workers would start work earlier, they would be required to pay US$2,600 daily! Pantech apparently poached a few employees from LG before.

This is described as talent war - in Korea, there is an oversupply of IT job candidates at the entry level, but gaps in upper levels. The court stated that a company who is the victim of such practices would stand to lose out in the market place, as it is depleted of its talents.

Our question with regard to this is - what will the 6 employees do? They surely aren't too excited to go back to work in LG. They didn't like to work there in the first place - does anybody in LG believe that they will give everything to the company after such ruling? It looks more probable that they will sit their time out. Next - why did they leave in the first place? Okay, LG has a great climate to work in, but may be Pantech offered more? If LG would have been able to provide the employees with an environment that entices them to stay, not a single employee would have left in the first place.

So this is actually a lose-lose-lose situation. The employees lose, because they waste their time, Pantech loses, because they don't get the employees they desire and LG loses, because it has 6 disengaged and unhappy employees.