Our article focuses on the essence, characteristics, and the structure of the labor potential of the region as well as its role in socio-economic development, territorial and environmental characteristics of labor resources and mechanisms for the reproduction of labor potential. Our results are based on a conceptual and methodological review of foreign and domestic sources. Perspective directions of labor resources research manifest such common features as the assessment of migration risks, the influence of globalization factors, forecasting the dependence of labor productivity at the regional level on market factors, climatic conditions, insurance mechanisms, and other factors. We conclude that research activity directed at human resources of the regions and their qualitative and quantitative properties is extremely high. Moreover, we note a high level of interest of scientists to the problem of labor potential at the micro, meso and macro level in Russian Federation. Our paper pays special attention to the analysis of existing approaches to methods for assessing the labor potential of the region, as proposed by Russian researchers and applied in the Russian Federation. Moreover, it considers the features of the main methodological approaches, studies their classification, as well as the technology of evaluation depending on the research tasks and objectives. We describe the method used for measuring the labor potential of a region on the basis of the index method which allows us to take into account its specific conditions of its reproduction and use at the regional level, as well as to conduct reasonable comparative assessments. In addition, we present our own calculations carried out on the basis of the proposed method and employing the state and the level of development of labor potential in the North Caucasus and Southern Caucasus federal districts, as well as in the Russian Federation as a whole.