A Federal Trade Commission hearing on the agency’s proposed ban on noncompete agreements revealed a sharp divide between businesses worried that without the clauses executives could take their secrets to competitors and employees who say allowing them stifles innovation and allows employers to exploit them.

The pushback from business groups, in particular, suggests the FTC may have to settle on a more surgical approach that addresses hardships that noncompete clauses impose on lower-wage workers who many observers believe should not be bound by them in the first place.