People in the fisheries sector have limited access to social protection, despite experiencing increasing risks linked to climate change and overfishing. While social protection and labor programs can enable and incentivize households to engage in more sustainable practices and more resilient livelihoods, they rarely respond to the specific needs of fishers and fish workers. This policy note outlines how social protection and labor policies and programs might be extended to better assist fisheries actors, and how these policies and programs could be better leveraged to support acceptance of and compliance with rules and regulations and, ultimately, to better achieve fisheries management objectives. While there are numerous challenges, there are also clear opportunities to adapt social protection and labor instruments to the fisheries sector in order to reduce overall vulnerability—of people, and of the ecosystems that support them—for a more sustainable future.