Career Opportunities

Nursing Career Opportunities

Employment Outlook

RNs work as patient advocates to promote health, prevent disease, and help people cope with illness. When providing direct patient care, RNs observe, assess, and record symptoms, reactions, and progress; administer medications; instruct patients and families in proper care, and assist in convalescence and rehabilitation. Our program will prepare you to provide safe, effective nursing care, and to work as a member of an interdisciplinary healthcare team.

What is the Employment Outlook?

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics job opportunities are very good. They project that between 2021 and 2031, jobs for Registered Nurses will increase by 6% compared to a projected 5% average growth rate for all occupations. Nationally, the median annual wage for registered nurses was $77,600 in May 2021. The lowest 10 percent earned less than $59,450, and the highest 10 percent earned more than $120,250. The median wage is the wage at which half the workers in an occupation earned more than that amount and half earned less.

The median pay for RNs in NJ is $82,010 (NJ Nursing Supply and Demand Data, 2017).

Read the full report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics here
Read the National Workforce Data report here
Read the New Jersey Collaborating Center for Nursing Supply and Demand Report here

Where do RNs work?

Registered nurses work in many settings, including schools, doctors’ offices, long-term care facilities, and acute hospitals. The Bureau of Labor Statistics states that 60% of employed nurses are working in acute care hospitals, 18% are working in ambulatory healthcare services that they define to include physicians’ offices, home healthcare, and outpatient care centers, and 6% are working in long-term care facilities. Schools and military service provide the work settings for the remainder of the nursing work force.