New grad RN jobs and nurse residency programs in Louisiana

A quarter of Louisiana RNs earn less than $33.19 an hour ($69,040 a year) and half earn more than $38.57. First-year offers tend to sit near the lower figure, since hospital pay scales usually rise with experience.

That puts Louisiana 44th of the 50 states and DC for median RN pay.

$5.38 an hour separates the 25th percentile from the median here, close to the typical gap across the states.

The New Orleans-Metairie area employs 11,530 RNs, about 24% of the state's total.

When people search for new grad RN jobs in Louisiana, the place they name most often is Lafayette.

The Louisiana State Board of Nursing licenses RNs in Louisiana.

Louisiana is in the Nurse Licensure Compact. If Louisiana is your primary state of residence, the license you earn after the NCLEX can be multistate, valid in every compact state. Nurses who live in another compact state can work in Louisiana on their home state's multistate license.

Every one of its neighboring states is in the compact too, so one license covers the whole region.

Yes, with conditions. Louisiana can issue a working permit to graduates waiting on their first exam result if you test within three months of graduating and live and plan to work in Louisiana. You work as an "R.N. applicant" in a staff nurse role with direct RN supervision available, until your first result or three months if you have not tested.

Source: Louisiana Administrative Code, LAC 46:XLVII.3329, read October 2026. The permit makes it legal; whether you can use it depends on the employer, since not every hospital starts graduate nurses before they are licensed. Ask the recruiter.

29 of the 50 states and DC allow something like this, each with its own limits. See every state's rule.

2,321 of the 2,593 first-time, U.S.-educated candidates who took the NCLEX-RN for Louisiana in 2025 passed: 89.5%, 2.8 points above the national rate of 86.7%.

With 30 new-grad programs on our list, that is about 86 new test takers for each one, near the national figure of about 114.

The exam is the same everywhere; the rate tells you about the graduates who tested here, not about your own chances. See pass rates in every state.

Among its neighboring states, Texas both pays RNs the most (a median of $95,970) and has the most new-grad programs on our list (163).