The development of a modern economy, increasing its competitiveness is impossible without the accumulation and development of human capital, since the foundation of the transformation of the economic system into an innovation economy is human capital. In this regard, the level of development and effectiveness of the use of human capital is of paramount importance. In this study, an attempt is made to assess the effectiveness of the use of human capital for its contribution to the economy of the country. The authors emphasize that the modern economy makes new demands on workers, therefore it is necessary to constantly accumulate human capital, its development through continuous training, which will allow the domestic economy to exit on the trajectory of sustainable economic growth. The need to create conditions for a comprehensive increase in the level of development of human capital was stressed. The authors propose an author's approach to assess the level of development and efficiency of the use of human capital on the basis of indicators: the index of labor productivity, the share of high-technology and knowledge-intensive industries in GDP, the increase in the number of high-productivity jobs, the innovative activity of organizations, the share of domestic expenditure on research and development in GDP, the coefficient of inventive activity. The article presents the results of the study of human capital in the Russian Federation. The role of human capital in the economic development of the country has been studied and justified. Key indicators of the effectiveness of the use of human capital are analyzed. Trends in the development of human capital in the Russian Federation for 2011–2016 are shown. The analysis of the results of the assessment will reveal problems in the formation and use of human capital and determine the main directions and necessary conditions for increasing the contribution of human capital to the economy.