During the fourth industrial revolution, profound changes in the field of employment are taking place, new forms of it are emerging, including those presented in the sharing economy. The sharing economy includes both the labor sector and niches related to trade and services. At the same time, the specifics of this phenomenon is the Internet, which performs an intermediary function between participants in the sharing economy. The purpose of the article is to analyze the role of the sharing economy in the precarization of employment. An analysis of the literature showed the existence of two points of view regarding the sharing economy: 1) a positive view points to an increase in the effectiveness of the use of goods, the birth of “non-market” practices and the solidarity of citizens, 2) a negative view signals attempts to camouflage old forms of exploitation under the guise of a new one socio-economic phenomenon. In this regard, the article analyzes the positive features of the sharing economy (the additional use of goods, the optimization of work processes, the emergence of new sources of labor income, the employment potential for pensioners, etc.) and the precarious features (inconstancy of employment, insecurity of income, overexploitation, etc.). As a result, a conclusion is made about the ambiguity of the role of the sharing economy: in itself, it expands the forms of precarization, but at the same time it mitigates the consequences of precarization (in other words, it performs a positive function). The scientific novelty of the study lies in a comprehensive view of the sharing economy (including the consideration of consumption and labor aspects), as an important factor in the study of the precarization of labor and, as a result, of life.