Conceptual aspects of the definition of the category "labor potential"

There were considered and systematized scientific approaches to the definition of labor potential as an economic category in the article. The results of comparing of the opinions of scientists on this issue are presented in the article. There are many interpretations of the concept of labor potential that exist in the scientific literature have been systematized for three approaches: statistical, sociological and economic. The authors come to the conclusion that when analyzing the category of “labor potential”, it is necessary to make and take into consideration a category as “unrealized labor potential”, thit is the result of the difference between the value of an employee’s labor potential and the value of his ability to work (labor force). The authors gave the definition of labor potential as a result of the conducted research. This definition is concretized the essence of the labor potential and meets a number of requirements. The requirements according to which the labor potential: is a resource category that includes various characteristics of employees; is an integral expression of the human resources ability to solve organizational purposes; reflects the complex structure of labor potential, that including a set of various professional and personal characteristic of employees.