New Jersey Faces a Serious Nursing Shortage

1. New Jersey Faces a Serious Nursing Shortage • There are currently 11,440 nurses practicing in New Jersey.1 • 15 percent of RNs are expected to retire in five years.2 • New Jersey will need 18,734 RNs in five years to maintain the current nurse supply.3 • 53 percent of direct care nurses report that there is a lack of RNs in their units. That lack is compromising their ability to provide quality care.4 • If nothing changes, New Jersey will have a shortfall of 40,000 nurses by 2020.5 1, 5. Susan Reinhard, Barbara Wright, Mary Ellen Cook, New Jersey’s nursing Faculty Workforce: A Technical Report for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, October 2007 2, 3. Dickson, Geri, Situation Critical: Closing the Nurse Supply Gap in New Jersey, The New Jersey Collaborating Center for Nursing, Rutgers University, February 2009 4. Flynn, Linda, The State of the Nursing Workforce in New Jersey: Findings from a Statewide Survey of Registered Nurses, The New Jersey Collaborating Center for Nursing, Rutgers University, 2007