The article analyzes the possibilities and problems of regulating social and labor relations in the digital economy, which is essentially a platform economy. The author focuses on the study of the social consequences of the organizational and technological transformation of the modern labor market in accordance with the realities of the digital economy. From the author’s point of view, the main thing is the decrease in the demand for labor, which is realized in the format of reducing the scope of traditional, “classical” social and labor relations that ensure the connection of production with social policy by insuring workers from all kinds of social risks. A “side effect” of this is the growth of self-employment, as a transformed form of employment for hire, implemented more and more often through digital crowdworking platforms. The main social challenge of such a transformation is the break in the connection between employment and social policy, the deterioration of the social situation of workers, the difficulty in filling social funds. The article emphasizes that the overdue reform of labor legislation, bringing it into line with the realities of today is a complex and lengthy process. It requires not only clarification of the terminology used, a clear identification of the main subjects of social and labor relations and adjustment of certain legislative norms, but also the formation of a new conceptual and theoretical paradigm for the functioning of the labor sphere and the social sphere as a whole.