Tech firms agree to end no-poaching recruitment pacts

More should give salaries a boost

Google has bowed to pressure from the Department of Justice

Tech giants including Google and Apple have settled a Department of Justice lawsuit by agreeing to end an arrangement whereby they pledged that they would not recruit each other’s employees.

Under this arrangement, the companies compiled multiple “do not cold call lists”, which had the effect of depressing salaries in the sector, according to a report in the Financial Times.

The Department of Justice was investigating agreements between Apple and Google, Apple and Adobe Systems, Apple and Disney’s Pixar, Google and Intel, and Google and Intuit.

The Department of Justice said that cold calling was a particularly effective method of competing for computer engineers and scientists because employees of this sort might not respond to other kinds of recruitment.