The paper seeks to profile the changes in the levels and structure of wages in Bangladesh’s large-scale industries in the post liberation period. It is found that real wages in large-scale industries essentially stagnated between 1972/73 and 1981/82 according to BBS data. However, real wages in public sector industries are found to have grown, albeit at positive rates. These real wage growth rates for the public sector are very modest, however. Hence, there is no evidence that we found suggesting the presence within public sector industries of a regime of labour aristocracy : while GDP per capita grew at about 1.6% during 1973/74 through 1981/82, the corresponding real wage growth rate has been well less than 1%. A second order of finding was that skill differentials rose before declining again during this period–thus suggesting an inverted-U type of pattern. All in all, skill differentials have been contracted during this period. The wage structure appears therefore to have been compressed. A positive association was noted between industry-wide capital-labour ratio and the premia paid on skills. Inter-industry differentials, too, have been compressed.