The subject of the research is the processes of formation and use of labor resources of agrarian enterprises, management of their development and improvement, regulation and support of employment of the population of rural territories. The purpose of the work is to identify the problem of the formation and use of labor resources of agrarian enterprises and to define the principles and substantiate the mechanisms of their improvement and development, state support and regulation with the involvement of the latest concepts of social responsibility, public-private partnership, social management. Methodological basis of the article became as general scientific, and special methods of scientific knowledge. Were used methods: dialectical, monographic, historical, system-structural analysis and synthesis, problem and program-target approaches. Results of work. The article deals with the problems and proposed principles and mechanisms of rational use of labor resources in agrarian enterprises, instruments of state regulation and support of employment of rural population. Of particular importance is the rationale for rational use of labor resources in agrarian enterprises as the main places of application of labor in the countryside. To this end, the article identifies the factors of employment of rural population in agribusiness, establishes the principles and mechanisms for managing it. The identified risks of the formation of labor resources and appropriate means of overcoming them. Measures of state regulation and support of labor resources of agrarian enterprises are developed. Particular attention is paid to the substantiation and development of employment programs, improvement and development of labor resources at the level of agrarian enterprises, rural territories, regions, countries. This provides a comprehensive program-targeted approach to solving this problem, taking into account the different vectors of global influences and involving modern concepts of sociologization of the market economy of the agrosphere - social responsibility, public-private partnership, social management, etc. The field of application of results. Conclusions and results of the article can be used in the educational-scientific process of the economic faculties of higher educational institutions. It is expedient to transfer them for practical use in the management of labor resources to agrarian enterprises, rural communities, relevant departments of rayon and regional state administrations. Conclusions. The functioning of agrarian enterprises as the most common rural businesses contributes to the full inclusion and effective functioning of market mechanisms that, objectively, through the free fluctuation of prices and earnings, balance the supply and demand for labor in the agrarian sector of the economy. It is also worth focusing on the coordination of employment activities with other areas of economic and social policy in the countryside on the basis of national and regional employment programs. This is one of the important principles that ensures the effectiveness of private and state measures in the field of agrarian labor throughout the country. The presented principles of management of labor resources and regulation of employment in the countryside should be supplemented, in our opinion, another not less important – the principle of advance. Its essence is to predict the development of processes in the market of agrarian labor, changes in its conditions and the definition of concrete decisions in the field of formation and use of labor resources of agrarian enterprises on this basis. This will ensure the best management of their development in the future. In developing the appropriate mechanisms one must rely on all the above principles in interaction, in other words, consider them as interdependent aggregate.