Aries
You are 100% right. It is nearly impossible for a new grad to get a job in the tri-state area. The only exception is if she/he has some sort of serious “pull” with the facility. No one wants inexperienced new grads. I graduated in 2009 and I have only been lucky enough to find a per-diem job since then -and that was with pull! (which is not even giving me as much hands on experience as I really need).
Health, yes, a new grad can probably easily get a job in a nursing home, but nursing homes are awful places to work -each nurse often has 25+ patients at a time, thereby making it impossible to give any of them real nursing care.