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Quick Facts on Registered Nurses1
  • Registered Nurses (RNs) were the largest healthcare occupation in 2003, with employment of over 2.4 million jobs.

  • Women comprised 92.1 percent of RNs in 2003.

  • According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), in 2003, 81.9 percent of RN's were white, 9.9 percent were black, 7.0 percent were Asian, and 3.9 percent were Hispanic. 2 Compared with total employment figures in 2003, blacks and Hispanics were underrepresented as registered nurses. Hispanics represented 12.6 percent of total employment, while blacks represented 10.7 percent.

  • BLS projects that the number of new jobs created for RNs will increase by 27.3 percent between 2002 and 2012 from 2,284,000 to 2,908,000.

  • BLS also projects that total job openings due to growth and net replacements will result in 1.1 million job openings for RNs alone by 2012.

  • Earnings of RNs are above average. The median weekly earnings of full-time wage and salary workers employed as RNs were $899 compared to $620 for all workers in 2003.

Souce: U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics.


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1 U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics.
2 Numbers will not sum to total because Hispanics can be of any race.