State, Local and Common jurisdiction
A New Jersey civil service title is published for State service, for local government, or for both. Jurisdiction decides who employs you and who sets the pay. Compare all three with title counts from the official specifications.
Every published specification names a jurisdiction: the level of government the title exists at. It decides who your employer would be, who sets the salary, and — for local titles — whether your town has adopted Title 11A at all. These are the 6,360 titles carrying a jurisdiction in the published specifications.
State — 3,824 titles
Positions with New Jersey state agencies and departments
Work directly for the State of New Jersey across executive branch departments, independent authorities, and state institutions.
Local — 2,257 titles
Positions with counties, municipalities, and local agencies
Work for local governments including counties, municipalities, school districts, and local authorities serving New Jersey communities.
Common — 279 titles
Positions found in both state and local government
Job titles that exist across both state and local government, offering flexibility in where you can apply your skills.
What the published specification tells you about pay
Jurisdiction changes how much the specification itself can tell you about money. State pay is set on published salary schedules negotiated per bargaining unit, so a State specification usually carries a salary range: 3,308 of 3,824 State titles (86.5%) do. Local pay is set by each employer's own ordinance or resolution, so the same field is almost always empty: 7 of 2,257 local titles (0.3%). That is not missing data — there is no statewide figure to publish, because two towns using the identical specification can pay very differently.
For local roles the useful compensation signal comes from elsewhere: employer pages carry pension-enrolled salary distributions per town, county and authority, which cover municipalities that publish no schedule at all.
Class of service by jurisdiction
| 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 |
Jurisdiction on a title is not the same question as whether a given employer is a civil service jurisdiction. Local titles only apply where the county, municipality or authority has adopted Title 11A — the employer directory lists every confirmed local jurisdiction and answers that question by name.
Keep reading: classes of service · local civil service employers · State agencies · independent authorities.