This paper examines wage differentials for four types of workers employed by mediumlarge
(20 or more employees) wholly-foreign multinational enterprises (WFs), joint-venture
multinationals (JVs), state-owned enterprises (SOEs), and domestic private firms in
Vietnamese manufacturing in 2009. When all sample firms were combined, unconditional JVprivate
and WF-private wage differentials were 106-124 percent for managers, 78-87 percent
for professionals and technicians, 56-68 percent for clerical and support workers, and 22-48
percent for production workers. Corresponding, conditional wage differentials which account
for the influences of worker education and sex, in addition to firm capital intensity and size,
were positive and usually significant, but smaller, 72-78 percent for managers, 32-36 percent
for professionals and technicians, 23-28 percent for clerical and support workers and 15-16
percent for production workers. SOE-private differentials were all much smaller. When
estimated at the industry-level, conditional WF-private differentials were positive and
significant for most occupations and industries. JV-private differentials were also positive and
significant in most industries for highly paid managers or professionals and technicians, but
not for lowly paid clerical and support workers or production workers. Most SOE-private
differentials were also insignificant when estimated at the industry level. In short, there was a
strong tendency for MNE-private differentials to be larger for managers than for professionals
and technicians, and a somewhat weaker tendency for differentials to be larger for
professionals and technicians than for clerical and support workers.