There is a question asked by default in almost every interview in Vietnam: "What is your current salary?" Since June 2026, in the European Union, that is a question an employer may not ask.
Directive (EU) 2023/970 on pay transparency was adopted on 10 May 2023 and came into force the following month. Member States had three years to write it into national law, with a deadline of 7 June 20261,2. That deadline has passed and, according to a round-up by the law firm Morgan Lewis, most countries had not completed transposition, so the picture now varies by country3.
The content, though, is settled, and it changes a good deal of ordinary pay practice.
Four core rules
Before hiring. Applicants have the right to know the starting pay or pay range for the role, along with any relevant collective agreement provisions. This must come before the interview, so that negotiation starts from balanced information. And employers may not ask applicants about their pay in current or previous jobs1.
During employment. Workers may ask in writing for their own pay level and the average pay levels, broken down by sex, for comparable categories of work. Employers must answer within two months, and must tell all workers once a year that this right exists1. Clauses requiring employees to keep their pay secret are void2.
Gender pay gap reporting. The schedule depends on size: employers with 250 or more workers report by 7 June 2027 and every year after; those with 150 to 249 report by the same date and then every three years; those with 100 to 149 start on 7 June 2031, every three years. Below 100 workers it is voluntary unless national law says otherwise1.
The 5 percent trigger. Where reporting shows an average pay difference between women and men of at least 5 percent in any category of workers, the employer cannot justify it on objective, gender-neutral criteria, and has not fixed it within six months of submitting the report, a joint pay assessment with workers' representatives becomes mandatory1.
Why HR teams in Vietnam should watch this
The first reason is practical. Vietnamese companies that manufacture, provide services or belong to European groups will start getting new questions in supplier reviews: pay structures by job category, gaps by sex, the basis on which job value is assessed. The parent company needs the data to report, and it will ask each site.
The second reason sits in Vietnamese law already. The 2019 Labour Code requires employers to ensure equal pay without gender discrimination for work of equal value4. The principle matches the European directive. What is missing here is a mechanism to measure and publish, so in practice almost nobody knows what the gap inside their own company is.
The third reason is everyday recruitment. When a new salary is anchored to the old one, every disadvantage a person carried in the past follows them to the next employer. That is how a small gap at graduation grows over ten years. Dropping the salary-history question and giving the role's range instead cuts that chain, and needs no new law.
Three things to borrow now, at no cost
Not every European rule transfers. But these three habits are within reach of any employer, and they improve hiring quality before they improve fairness.
First, remove the "current salary" field from the application form and replace it with "expected salary". Second, publish the pay range in the job ad, or at least send it to candidates before the first interview. Third, once a year, calculate the average pay difference between men and women within each job family in your own company. The calculation takes an afternoon in a spreadsheet, and the result usually surprises the leadership team more than any engagement survey.
