Abstract. The author believes that the world labor market should be perceived as a taxonomic unit limited in its scope by the features of the national labor markets and, at the same time, having the incentives to expand as a result of the increasingly powerful factors of globalization. The key challenges to the global labor market are associated with the acceleration of the transnationalization of capital, with the changes in foreign trade, and with the increased international migration. All these global factors exert unambiguous impact on the jobs, the wages and the productivity in the national economies. Their impact on the economies of developed and developing countries varies considerably. Much will depend on the external economic strategy and the readiness of national labor markets to counter the external challenges.