Legal Regulation of Work in the Digital Economy: Protecting Employees from Psychosocial Risks

The emergence of new psychosocial risks at work and their impact on the employees’ health and well-being under economy digitalization requires improved legal regulation of the labour sphere. In the digital economy, the distinction between working and rest time is blurring, creating new factors for work stress, including cyberstress. Employers are often not responsible for employees’ stress having a negative impact on the physical and psychosocial well-being of the latter. The empirical basis of the study is the results of a sociological survey of respondents from several countries conducted in 2018 with a random sample of employees of different organizations. Comparative analysis of responses reveals the dominants, similarities and differences in the employees’ perception of the work factors that affect their health and well-being. Most of the workers surveyed noted the negative impact of work on their self-felling. Among the main destructive factors, stress at work is dominant. It becomes obvious that protecting workers from work stress requires regulatory measures, the absence of which in many countries does not allow leaving this issue unattended. The authors consider the progressive foreign experience and relevant areas of Russian legislation improvement in the field of workers’ health and well-being in the digital economy.