The article is devoted to the study of the right to labor as one of the fundamental human rights. It is proved that the legal regulation of labor relations on the basis of freedom of labor, which includes the right to work, which every freely chooses or to which freely agrees. Labor freedom presupposes the existence of the principle of freedom of the employment contract. 

The questions of the state policy in the field of employment, which has active and passive forms, are considered. Content passive policy is a system of measures to attract in employment of persons who lost their job and willing to be employed, and also measures of social protection of the unemployed. Active policies are to create a state system of measures to prevent unemployment. 

The attention is focused on the fact that the leading direction of reforms in the social sphere is the transformation policy in respect of employment and labor market, which provides not only a significant improvement in the living standards of the broad layers of the population, but also the formation of the social structure that is similar to the European model.