Classes of service in New Jersey civil service
New Jersey sorts every civil service title into one of three classes of service, and the class decides whether you take an exam, how you are hired, and what job protection you get. Compare all three with title counts from the official specifications.
Every New Jersey civil service title carries a class of service, and it is the single field that most changes what applying for the job is actually like. It decides whether there is an examination, whether you are ranked on an eligibility list, and how much protection the job carries once you hold it. These are the 6,171 classified and unclassified titles in the published specifications, grouped by that field.
Competitive — 3,957 titles
Merit-based positions with full civil service protections
Positions filled through competitive examination, offering the strongest job security and advancement opportunities in state government.
Non-Competitive — 1,016 titles
Specialized positions requiring unique credentials or qualifications
Professional and technical positions where competitive examination is impractical. Hiring based on credentials and qualifications with intermediate civil service protections.
Unclassified — 1,198 titles
Senior leadership and policy-making positions serving at will
Executive, managerial, and policy-making positions appointed without examination. Employees serve at the pleasure of the appointing authority with no civil service protections.
Class of service by jurisdiction
Class and jurisdiction are independent fields, and the combination is what decides how a job is actually filled. This is every published specification that carries both:
| Class of service | State | Local | Common | All titles |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Non-competitive | 343 | 624 | 49 | 1,016 |
| Competitive | 2,350 | 1,386 | 221 | 3,957 |
| Unclassified | 1,126 | 63 | 9 | 1,198 |
| All classes | 3,819 | 2,073 | 279 | 6,171 |
Read it by row to see how a class is distributed across levels of government, and by column to see what a State or local job search is mostly made of. Competitive titles dominate because the examination requirement is the default under the statute; unclassified titles are the exception the law carves out, and they are concentrated where policy-making and appointed roles sit.
The class of service is published by the Civil Service Commission on the specification itself, so it is a fact about the title rather than about a particular vacancy. The authority for the three-way split is N.J.S.A. 11A:3-1, and the rules allocating a title to the unclassified service sit at N.J.A.C. 4A:3-1.3. Every specification page on this site states its own class, and the three pages above explain what each one means for hiring, tenure and appeal rights.
Keep reading: State, Local and Common jurisdiction · how the exam works · the hiring process · eligibility lists.