The subject of the study is the theoretical principles of the efficiency of using the labor potential of agricultural enterprises. The purpose of the study is to determine the ways of efficient use of the labor potential of agricultural enterprises. Research methods. The work uses the dialectical method of scientific knowledge, the method of analysis and synthesis, the comparative method, and the method of summarizing data. Work results. The paper provides an interpretation of the content of the categories «labor productivity» and «productive power». The advantages and disadvantages of the method of measuring the intensity of agricultural labor are determined. The essence of the «labor efficiency» category is given. The difference between the efficiency of production and the productivity of social labor is outlined. Conclusions. Labor productivity and efficiency are decisive in the mechanism of effective use of labor potential. Since the labor process is characterized by the duration of the production process, intensity and productive power of labor, labor productivity depends on two complex factors – productive power and labor intensity. If labor productivity is understood as the ability of specific labor to produce a certain amount of consumer value per unit of time, then the productive power of labor is the ability of specific labor at its socially normal intensity to produce a certain amount of consumer value per unit of time, and intensity is the degree of exertion of physical and mental forces in the process of work. Therefore, both an increase in the productive power of labor and an increase in its intensity affect the additional release of products per unit of time. Labor efficiency as an economic category reflects not only the saving of working time in the production of certain types of products, but also the degree of achievement of social results: the level of wages, the distribution of labor by industries and spheres of activity, the correspondence of the volume of release of products to demand and the degree of its satisfaction.