New grad RN jobs and nurse residency programs in New Jersey

A quarter of New Jersey RNs earn less than $47.94 an hour ($99,710 a year) and half earn more than $51.20. First-year offers tend to sit near the lower figure, since hospital pay scales usually rise with experience.

That puts New Jersey 7th of the 50 states and DC for median RN pay.

Pay is bunched together in New Jersey: only $3.26 an hour separates the 25th percentile from the median, a narrower gap than in most states.

The largest RN job market touching New Jersey is the New York-Newark-Jersey City area, with 197,740 RNs; that count includes nurses in New York.

When people search for new grad RN jobs in New Jersey, the places they name most often are Jersey City and South Jersey.

The New Jersey Board of Nursing licenses RNs in New Jersey.

New Jersey is in the Nurse Licensure Compact. If New Jersey 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 New Jersey on their home state's multistate license.

Of its neighboring states, Delaware and Pennsylvania are in the compact; New York is not, so working there means a separate license.

No. New Jersey law has no permit for new graduates to work before the NCLEX. A bill pre-filed for the 2026 session (A3029) would create a one-year temporary graduate license with an RN physically present; until it becomes law, you wait for your license.

Source: New Jersey Legislature, Assembly bill A3029 (2026 session), read October 2026.

Of its neighboring states, Delaware, New York and Pennsylvania do let new graduates work on a permit before passing. See every state's rule.

3,951 of the 4,549 first-time, U.S.-educated candidates who took the NCLEX-RN for New Jersey in 2025 passed: 86.9%, about the same as the national rate of 86.7%.

With 45 new-grad programs on our list, that is about 101 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, New York pays RNs the most, a median of $109,440. Pennsylvania has the most new-grad programs on our list (62).