However, he stressed that for workers to truly benefit, the crucial factor is maintaining price stability along with accompanying social security policies.

A survey by the Vietnam General Confederation of Labor shows that the lives of many workers remain difficult, with more than 20 percent having incomes insufficient to cover their living costs and nearly 27 percent having to borrow money for monthly expenses.

This is one of the grounds for the organization to propose an increase in the regional minimum wage by 8.5 to 9.8 percent starting from 2027.

The Vietnam General Confederation of Labor has proposed two options for regional minimum wage adjustments starting from January 1, 2027, which are 8.5 percent and 9.8 percent. How do you evaluate these two options?

From a worker’s perspective, as the prices of many goods keep rising, everyone wants the wage adjustment to be as high as possible to improve income. Conversely, businesses always expect input costs, including labor costs, to be at reasonable levels to reduce production and business pressure. These are different interests and completely understandable.

In my view, in Vietnam’s current labor market, adjusting the minimum wage mainly aims to partly offset higher living costs, not yet fully reflect the value of labor as in developed labor markets.

Therefore, both 8.5 percent and 9.8 percent increases have grounds. However, in the current context, a nearly 10 percent increase is more appropriate, helping improve income and ease living cost pressure on workers.

After the minimum wage rose 7.2 percent from early 2026, many said the increase still has not kept up with living costs. If it continues to rise 9.8 percent from 2027, will this gap narrow?

Recently, many essential costs such as electricity, energy, healthcare, housing, food, and transport have all increased, especially in Hanoi and HCMC. So the current minimum wage adjustment still hardly fully offsets workers’ living cost pressure.

However, relative to Vietnam’s current income level and economic capacity, an increase of about 10 percent is reasonable and should be considered.

Vietnam has entered the upper-middle-income country group. If the objective is to maintain double-digit economic growth in the coming years, workers' incomes also need to be improved correspondingly, thereby ensuring harmony between economic growth and social security.

In your opinion, when determining the minimum wage increase level, which factor should be prioritized?

According to me, the most important factor remains the living standard of workers. The goal of adjusting the minimum wage is to ensure that real income is not eroded by inflation, thereby helping workers stabilize their lives.

When income is improved, workers will feel secure at work, enhance productivity, and commit long-term to enterprises. Therefore, ensuring and elevating real income must be prioritized, thereby creating a foundation to improve labor productivity.

If the economy achieves high growth but workers' incomes do not increase correspondingly, the fruits of growth will be difficult to distribute harmoniously, and sustainable development goals will also be hard to attain.

Only maintaining price stability makes wage increases truly meaningful

If the 9.8 percent increase option is approved, how will workers benefit?

That depends very heavily on price developments.

If wages increase but prices of electricity, petroleum, food, tuition, hospital fees, etc., simultaneously rise, workers' nominal income will be higher, but their real income will remain unimproved.

Conversely, if the price baseline is kept stable, the wage increase will exert a clear and profound effect, helping workers possess more resources to cover essential needs and improve their quality of life.

Therefore, wage increases must go hand in hand with solutions to control inflation, stabilize prices, and strengthen social security, such as supporting public transport costs, healthcare, education, or stabilizing the prices of essential commodities. Only then will workers truly benefit from the wage increase.

In your view, is the current minimum wage adjustment mechanism appropriate?

In my opinion, the current adjustment mechanism is fundamentally appropriate, especially when the price baseline is relatively stable.

However, in cases where the market fluctuates heavily, it is not absolutely necessary to continuously adjust the minimum wage, as this can amplify cost pressures on enterprises and the economy. Instead, the State should apply more flexible solutions such as price stabilization, subsidizing certain essential services, or providing direct support to workers.

In the long term, if Vietnam maintains a high growth rate over the next 5 years or so, I believe the objective of bringing the minimum wage close to the minimum living standard of workers by around 2030 is entirely feasible.

Vu Diep