The paper investigates the issues of a legal status of scientists, researchers and persons involved in conducting scientific research (supporting personnel), analyzes changes under the Federal Law No. 157-FZ of May 25, 2020, “On amendments to the Labour Code of the Russian Federation with regard to the establishment of the limit age for replacement of positions of heads, deputy heads of state and municipal educational organizations of higher education and scientific organizations and heads of their branches,” determines the directions of improvement in legislation associated with insufficient legal regulation of working hours of scientific workers. The author examines the issue of scientific workers’ labor norming and substantiates the necessity of implementing labor standards for scientific workers in order to exclude their overworking. In addition, the paper focuses on problems related to the introduction of researchers’ performance and efficiency indicators that have appeared due to the introduction of an “effective contract” (a performance-based contract of employment).